Chapter Five

The relation between the CP and the PP

"It Is Irrational to bite off more than you can chew whether the object of your pursuit Is hamburgers or the Truth." (Grice, 1987:369)

5.0 Preliminaries

The aim of this chapter is to show the relation of the CP and the PP and the explanation of the need for rhetoric In the sense of a set of principles, which are observed in the planning, and interpretation of message. One can think that the study of the relation between the CP and the PP is not new field of research. It is worthwhile to mention that the theoretical clarifications will be dealt by the examples from William Faulkner's selected novels. The main part of this discussion is about the similarities and the contradictions between the PP and the CP. Are there any rules, universal, or local, to manage the discourse and interactions, which would be in accordance with the determined linguistic norms of the PP and the CP?

In this chapter, the attempt is being made to manifest some familiar ground by this discussion, although the approach will be to some extent unfamiliar, that how the

CP and the PP interact in the interpretation of indirectness. It has been said that rational communication, as captured by Grice's (1975-1989)

177 and the related maxims, is against linguistic , which posits that both may not be satisfied simultaneously.

It will be also argued that, in accounting for what is communicated, cooperation should not be taken as the point of departure, but may well constitute a derived notion in need of explanation. In this account, the premises of interiocutors' rationality and mutual face-wants yield different degrees of cooperation depending on the cultural and situational context.

5.1 Indirectness, the PP. and the CP

Indirectness is the most important kind of politeness in the English-speaking communities. It augments the degree of options and reduces the danger of face threatening. The phenomenon of linguistic indirectness with highlighting the notion of directives in the taxonomy of speech acts is proposed in Searle's work (1979a, b) which states that the chief motivation for indirectness in directives is politeness.

Another approach to indirect speech acts' is presented in Levinson's theory

(1983), which is built on the work of several researchers, within the framework of conversation analysis. Under this alternative approach, the principal encouragement for indirectness is in the theory of Brown and Levinson (1987).

Conclusions regarding politeness are derived from Gricean implicatures, which as it has been already mentioned; I come out from the theory of cooperative principle.

This conceptualization about cooperative principle is supplemented with the assumption of the mutual awareness of face'. Searie states: "politeness is a major

178 source of deviation from rational efficiency." (1987: 95)

On the other hand, as it has been shown, linguistic indirectness is employed In order to reach the conversational goal of politeness. As far as Grice's four categories, show "being dear" is one of the major concerns of cooperative principles. It explains that there is a contradiction between these two. One cannot use the indirect fonn of speaking as well as being enough clear and achieve to the aim of being relevant and understandable. Study the following example:

- Leave the room

-1 wonder if you would mind leaving the room.

In this example, the first one is a direct request, which seems not to be polite and the second one is indirect request, which is considered not to be so much serious to be mentioned. Clark and Schunk maintain that when speakers make requests,

"they make them indirectly through the use of interrogation fomis rather than through the imperative" (1980:11). The following examples can show the interpretation of conversational data where the CP alone appears to break down.

These examples demonstrate how an apparent breach of the CP is shown; at a deeper level of interpretation, involving the PP and the CP is released from difficulty by the PP.

A: We will all eat hamburger and ice cream, won't we?

B: Well, we will all eat ice cream.

In this example when A asks B to confirm A's opinion, B confinns part of it and ignore the rest. B wants to manifest that" we will not ai\ eat hamburgef indirectly.

179 By adding" but not hamburger" to this sentence, B could have been more infomnative, but only at the cost of being more impolite to a third party. B supposed the desires infomiation in order to uphold the PP.

In the following example from Go Down Moses, the apparent irrelevance in Lucas's reply breaches the maxim of relation:

- "... What I can't keep from studying about is what we gonter tell Nat about that back porch and that well."

"What we is?" Lucas said.

-"What I is, then," George said. Lucas looked at him for a moment.

"George Wilkins." He said.

"Sir," George said.

"I don't give no man advice about his wife." Lucas said. ( P:59)

Suppose George thinks that Lucas also shares in his crime, but he is not sure whether he accepts it hence tries not to be very direct and uses only the pronoun of "we" to make him understand they have both the same situation. Then a small step of politeness would be to refuse to put a direct blame, and instead to make a less revealing, substituting an impersonal person for the second person pronoun

"you." When Lucas hears this indirect accusation, he responds to it as having concerned that he may be guilty. He denies an offence, which has not been obviously imputed and he, somehow directly, responds that he is not as culprit as

George and does not need to find a way to escape from the situation by these

180 utterances: "What we is?" and "I don't give no man advice about his wife." Lucas said.

Brown and Levinson (1987) argue that the politeness maxims are more easily undemilned than the cooperative maxims. Leech (1983) says that there is a politeness principle that works in conjunction with the cooperative principle, and identifies six associated politeness maxims, which it has been elaborately discussed in the previous chapter: Tact maxim. Generosity maxim, Approbation maxim, Modesty maxim. Agreement maxim, Sympathy maxim.

According to Grice (1989), the cooperative principle and Its associated maxims are universal principles of language use, although some linguists such as Gazder

(1979) have challenged this claim and argued that they are subject to cultural variation. In contrast, Leech (1983) maintains that his politeness maxims have different weightings in different societies.

As Spencer-Oatey (2000) argues, the politeness maxims all seem to have universal valences. In other words, one pole of given dimension is always taken as being more desirable than the other. For example, with regard to modesty-pride

(maxim of Modesty), Leech implies "the more modesty, the better" and with regard to agreement-disagreement (maxim of Agreement), he implies "the more agreement, the better." (Watts, 2002:112-3)

Indirectness is a link between the CP and the PP. If the PP is respected by the consideration of before-mentioned maxims and principles, the cooperative principle

181 will be violated and vice versa, if Grice's CP is regarded, the politeness should be violated. Indirectness decreases the level of face threatening and maintaining the politeness by breaking the CP.

5.2 Kim's research

Kim (1994) proposed five conversational constraints in relation to requesting behavior. Drawing on theorizing in and communication studies, she suggested the following concerns: to concem to avoid hurting i\r\e hearer's feelings, to concem of avoiding imposition. Hence, it is very important'not to intrude on the other person, to concem to avoid negative face of evaluation by the hearer. Then it is very important that the message does not cause the hearer to dislike speaker, to concem for clarity, to concern for effectiveness and get the other person to do what the speaker wants.

Kim investigates the importance to people, when making a request, these five concerns and compares them in some English-speaking societies. Unlike Kim's studies (1994), which asked each participant to respond one of these scenarios, the recent studies show that for being polite, it seems to be necessary to respect all of the above-mentioned theories.

Spencer-Oatey (2000-2002) claim that sociality rights are an important motivating parameters underiying the management of relations, and it suggests that in future research, the notion of rights needs to be considered much more carefully and systematically. People's use of language is influenced not only by immediate

182 contextual factors, but also by underiying soclocultural prindples or concerns. The linguists Imply that there are some orders that reflect people's stylistic concerns: their concerns about directness-indirectness, modesty-approbation, wamnth/involvement-coolness/restraint, etc.

5.3 General Social Function of the CP and the PP

It seems necessary to consider the general social function of these two principles and the relation between them. The CP enables one participant in a conversation to communicate on the assumption that the other particfpant is being cooperative and it can regulate what is said. It could be expressed that the PP has a higher regulative role than this: to show the friendly relations which gives this assumption that the interlocutors are being cooperative in the first place.

The relation and the priority of one of these maxims to the other one are not concerned as a fix and unchangeable order. There are some situations that politeness can take a back seat and where the PP can overrule the CP in the sense that even the maxim of Quality is sacrificed. It can happen to an individual to feel justified in telling 'white lies' which is meant to deceive the hearer, for example,

"We bound to find it, captain," Georg said suddenly. "Two men slipped in here three years ago and dug up twenty-two thousand dollars in a old chum one night and got clean away for daylight."

"You bet," the salesman said. "And you know it was exactly twenty-two grand because you found where they had throwed away the odd cents they never wanted to bother with." (Go down Moses; P: 62)

183 It seems to A that the only way to motivate B Indirectly and request him to look for

a so-called treasure politely Is telling a white lie but on the other hand, B rejects

ironically A's story which has two violations. First statement shows that the PP Is

more observed than the CP because A breaks the maxim of Relevance and

Manner and the second utterance prefers the CP though B also breaches the

maxim of Quality.

To put it in Grice's terms, one is often faced with a clash between the CP and the

PP in being polite and s/he has to select the level of dealing with one against the

other one. One can respect the standard of beipg civil by using the polite temris In

speaking, but from the other hand, s/he violates the maxim of Quantity by making

the contribution more informative than is required.

5.4 Linguistic Markers of Politeness

Linguistic politeness is generally connected with social behavior. Accordingly, speakers are viewed as polite when they display a form of behavior that reduces

"friction in personal interaction" (Lakoff, 1975:64). This kind of behavior allows them to "engage in a conflict-free communication" (Fraser and Nelon, 1981:96), or establishes or maintains "comity among interactants in verbal interaction" (Leech,

1983:104). In Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness framework, this social

behavior is manifested in interactants' effort to minimize the imposition caused by

the performance of a face-threatening act.

According to Wattes politeness is a form of social behavior in that it is "geared

towards maintaining the equilibrium of interpersonal relationships within the social

184 group," which he calls "polite verbal behavior" (Wattes, 1992:43). While linguistic politeness across languages is apparently social. It is important to stress that societies can differ in what motivates the expression of politeness. Thus, following

Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness framework, the motivation for speaker to choose polite linguistic fonns arises from his need to recognize the addressee's and his own face needs and redress the inherent face-threatening effects of the he carries out.

5.5 The Cooperative Principles and Politeness Theories

The major politeness theories are distantly different from Grice's cooperative principle. Fraser's perspective on politeness (1990) provides a useful analysis of politeness theories. According to Fraser, LakofTs theory of politeness (1973) and

Leech's hypothesis of politeness from his principles of pragmatics (1983) rely on

Grice's cooperative principle (Fraser, 1990:222). Lakoff reduces Grice's four maxims to one-'be clear'- and adds a second of her own-'be polite'- to fomn her two rules of pragmatic competence (Watts, 2002:59-61). These views recognize that there is often tension within speakers between the CP and the maxim of politeness, Fraser states:

"Other things being equal minimize the expression of beliefs which are unfavorable to the hearer and at the same time maximize the expression of beliefs which are favorable to the hearer." (1990:225)

Fraser also examines Brown and Levinson's theory of politeness, which appeared

185 first in 1978 as an essay and then again in 1987 as a complete book. Brown and

Levinson say that their theory of politeness:

"Presume that Grice's theory of conversational implicature and the framework of the maxims that give rise to such implicatures are essentially con-ect." (1987:3)

It is significant that Grice, however, doesn't have the major influence on Brown and

Levinson's work; it was Goffrnan's concept of face-wants' to have major influence, which concerns individuals' self-concept 6y assuming the universality of Grice's maxims and taking up Goffman's 'face-wants', Brown and Levinson forni a theory of politeness that operated according to negative face and positive face:

"Negative face Is the want of every 'competent adult member' that his action be unimpeded by others and positive face is the want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some other." (Brown and

Levinson, 1987:62)

Several works attempt to unseat politeness theory by attacking the universality of

Grice's maxims. Some of this work claims that Grice's CP maxims don't hold up In all (as it has been largely discussed in the previous chapter) or in different situations hence, they can't be universal. Grice's maxims are crucial to Brown and

Levinson's theory because, like Lakoff and Leech, the theorists understand that intentionally broken maxims can implicate more infonmation than what is actually said. Politeness scholars look particularly at when the maxims of Relevance or

186 Quantity are exploited to implicate special status of the hearer.

5.6 The CP. the PP. and Gender Studies

There are some rules and nomis not only in the view of pragmatics (like Grice's

CP, etc) but also in any and community, which make the interlocutors not to

feel free to use the language in social interaction. One of these limitations is the

difference between genders. The struggle about female and male differences In

speaking, verbal interaction, and communication has been one of the most

interesting parts of the studies in pragmatics.

The feminists' struggle about the equal rights between women and men

strengthens in 1974-76. Lakoff published 'Language and Women's Place' In 1975,

He explains that women use polite language more than men because of social insecurity that they feel in their relations. Lakoff argues that distinctively women's interactive behavior is generally taken to be respectful. Lakoffs conclusion is summarized in the aphorism "you are damned if you do, you are damned if you don't." (Watts, 2002:61-2)

Cameron claims that focuses on Grice's use of the tenm 'cooperation', claiming that male dominance in the field of logic and has allowed "chauvinists and feminists" to believe in general that "whereas men compete in conversation, women use cooperative strategies". Cameron defines women's cooperation as she

sees it in their behavior at "instutionalized feminist gathering", where it is clear, she

says, that women should not "inten-upt nor raise their voices to silence others, that

187 solidarity should be expressed frequently, that women must give way to each other

rather than competing for the floor, and so on" (ibid: 42-43)

Feminist anthropologist Brown (1990) productively uses the cooperative principle

(as it informs politeness theory) to examine socio-political situations of women in

other cultures. In her 1992 article, Rundquist uses what she calls Grice's "soctai

theory of indirectness" to confront the "popular belief that women's speech is more

indirect than men's" (1992:431). Towards the end, Rundquist presents a study

using Grice's cooperative principle that indicates that men much more frequently flout maxims to communicate infonnation than women do. Her essay concludes

that men more often than women flout maxims because of the following reasons:

- "To give direction to their children

- To put themselves down as well as to tease others

- To be humorous

- To show themselves off to their best advantage in conversation

- To avoid direct confrontation, both with children and adults" (1992:447)

5.7 Meaning Between Lines

It seems to be necessary to make a better manifestation to understand what the

'meaning between the lines' is. Meaning between the lines is a common

phenomenon in poems, novels and indeed all speech and writing. In this thesis in fact, wherever the examples come up to explain a maxim or a theory, meaning

between the lines indirectly have been manifested. This is what the famous 20th

century Russian director Stanislawski called the 'sub-text' of plays by exploring

188 Politeness. (Im) politeness is something, which is often not made explicit, but, like conversational implicature, can be infen^ed in conversational exchanges.

Politeness in conversation is an important part of the social bond, which binds people together. As it has been elaborately explained in the previous chapters, there are two main ways of being polite to one another:

1. Demonstrating a positive attitude to someone or something and positive politeness.

2. Helping others to achieve their goals. This is usually called negative politeness.

Grice says that when one communicates one assumes that not only s/he but also the people s/he is talking to, will be conversationally cooperative - s/he will cooperate to achieve mutual conversational ends. This conversational cooperation even works when one is not being cooperative socially. It is noticed that how extra meaning comes about, and how understanding this kind of process can be used to interpret texts and talk.

It has been discussed that unlike pragmatists' rules and theories, maxims are flouted in real-life examples. It is important to remember that for inferring what is implicated in context; one should consider that things might be a bit more complex than the pragmatists' examples because:

1. Those examples have tended to be short sentences/utterances. However, the domain over which a maxim might operate can be shorter than a sentence/utterance and sometimes longer than a sentence.

189 2. One utterance or stretch of text might break more than one maxim at the same time. On the other hand, one maxim might be broken in order to preserve another

(as it has been manifested in the different examples from William Faulkner's selected novels, a character might break the Manner maxim to avoid saying something s/he thinks was untrue, and so uphold the Quality maxim).

3. Similarly, a maxim might be broken in order to preserve politeness. Politeness as a separate phenomenon will be examined later in this chapter.

Variation between one person's explanation and another's due to different people are bound to choose different words and grammatical structures make flouting of a maxim.

By using the Gricean analysis, one has been leaming to explore the 'meaning between the lines' in the conversation- the implicit but on the other hand understood meanings, character attitudes etc. that one can perceive 'behind' or

'underneath' what is said. It is not possible to look at every single turn because that would take too long. There are two important ways in which 'the meaning between the lines' can be explored in texts: how one can infer what is meant from what is said mainly through Grice's account of conversational cooperation and its associated maxims, and the role of politeness in conversation in general, and dramatic talk in particular.

5.8 Cooperative Principle and Cultural Norms of Politeness

While Grice's cooperative principle and maxims are mentioned, Grice identifies

190 some other important factors that influence the inferential process. To analyze a

conversational implicature, the hearer should observe the following data:

1. The conventional meaning of the words used, together with the identity of any references that may be Involved

2. The cooperative principle and its maxims

3. The context, linguistic and othenvise, of the utterance

4. Other items of background knowledge

5. The fact ((pr supposed fact) that all relevant items falling under the previous headings are available to both participants and both participants know or assume this to be the case. (1989: 31)

Grice's explanation of "implicature" also includes reference to "the psychological state or attitude, which needs to be attributed to a speaker" (op. cit.: 370). It is true that, if any universal principles in conversation has to be operated in monocultural settings.

As it has been discussed and explained in the previous chapters about cooperative principle and politeness principle, one reaches to the point that based on existing variety of cultures in different countries, international norms for the universality of the standard level of politeness cannot be considered. The same is about cooperative principle. It is hard to find some countries (even states or cities in one country) to accept and follow the same rules. Hence, the notion of universality for these principles is something out of reach.

191 It is to be made clear that the before-explained principles are literally being obeyed and they are sufficient in themselves to generate implicatures and they suffice to show that all of human beings regularly provide more or less information or truth than is strictly required for an exchange of information.

Mey suggests that the principles and maxims have no absolute form but they are

"always defined relative to a particular culture." (1994: 74). It can happen that an outsider violates a maxim based on perceptions of his/her own cultural norms. It would be rather difficult to imagine any context where Grice's maxims are operative* as descriptive norms of real conversations. To manifest this idea it seems better to look at an example extract out of Absalom, Absalom:

"Where do you get it?" he said.

"Found it." Luster said.

"I know that." He said "where, somebody's golf bag."

"I found it laying over here in the yard." Luster said. "I'll take a quarter for it."

"What makes you think it's yours." He said.

"I found it" Luster said.

"Then find yourself another one." He said. He put it in his pocket and went away. (P: 51)

The difference between both characters' cultures (as black/white or master/slave) makes misunderstanding about finding or stealing money. Luster thinks that

192 because he found money, it's his and breaks the maxim of Manner by not being

enough clear to transfer his idea. On the other hand, another character believes

that finding money is not equal with owning it when Luster is slave. In this situation,

he violates the PP by indirectly stating that Luster is a thief, "I know that." He said

"where, somebody's golf bag."

At the root of Brown and Levinson's (1989) Politeness Theory is the notion that

inferences are generated by clashes between requirements of politeness and

Gricean maxims of conversational efficiency. Riley suggests that Grice's principle of cqpperation and its subordinate maxims have been wrongly treated as universal principles. He agrees with George who dismisses Grice's maxims as the "local aspirations of middle-class intellectuals." He cites various examples, some anecdotal, stating for example that

'There are societies where truth or sincerity varies according to social status or to the chronological position in the interaction as a whole." (Riley,

1988:17)

5.9 Soerber and Wilson's Theory of Mutual Knowledge

The perception of shared assumptions is so critical in intercultural inferencing that one should notify Sperber and Wilson's refinement of the theory of inferencing in relation. For Sperber and Wilson while "all humans live in the same physical environment," this is only a common environment in a very broad sense, within which variability must always be accounted for. It is considered that there are

"differences in our narrower physical environments" for the following reasons:

193 1. Perceptual abilities vary in effectiveness from one individual to another.

2. Inferential abilities also vary.

3. People speak different languages, they have mastered different concepts, and so they (a) construct different representations and (b) make different inferences. (Op. cit.: 38),

Sperber and Wilson point out those even members of the same linguistic communities using the same language do not share the same assumptions as no

\\N0 people share identical life histories. They conclude that the notion of common knowledge is invalid and the idea of shared knowledge is too vague.

A severe problem of the maxims is that it is difficult to remove notions such as the notion of truth from the maxim of Quality. By refining the invalid notion of common background knowledge, Sperber and Wilson go beyond the cooperative principle or the maxims to consider the impossibility of mutual assumptions about the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which one is engaged. They emphasize inferencing as highly complex skilled behavior, which is often unsuccessful. Even extensive experience accompanied by training in awareness and flexibility is no guarantees of success. In other words, the less confident of success in perceiving what is mutually manifested, the more likely to reach mutually acceptable compromises at critical moments in intercultural negotiations.

194 5.10 Politeness as an aspect of linguistics

As it has been discussed in the previous chapter, linguists lool

approach as an aspect of Austinian speech act theory or Gricean conversational

implicature and they have examined it from a cross-cultural perspective, looking at

differences in politeness systems or their realizations across cultures, including genders. Linguistic politeness is approached from not only the western tradition of

"volition" but also from the viewpoint of "discernment" as proposed by Hill et d

(1986) and Ide (1989).

It is said that politeness is not communicated, it is not also an implicature. and the absence of communicated politeness should not to be taken as a lack of a polite attitude. Fraser (1990) presents that in any normal conversation; politeness is the expected state of affairs, where what constitutes politeness is dictated by the relevant socio-cultural norni for that interaction. Participants in a social interaction are noted polite when they follow the nomris but when they violate those nomris; they are considered impolite and any adaptation of linguistic fomn for

purposes of so-called "negative" and "positive politeness" is done pursuant to

achieving this expected state.

Most of the linguistic politeness rituals and universal norms of politeness cannot be

limited in the participants' quotidian interactions of any society. A significant

amount of politeness is performed by people's acting in accordance with socially

expected norms.

195 One of the reasons to be polite is that it serves the indirect kind of positive politeness. One of the strategies of positive politeness is to create common ground, and it is in that connection that the use of such linguistic rituals as honorifics works as politeness. Another motive to label such behavior as polite is that it provides a way to maintain distance by observing social norms. In this case, one knows how to choose appropriate reference for oneself and others marks one's tactfulness and skills in human relations.

5.11 Politeness, Activity types, and Role-relation

Politeness is regarded as a person's recognition of public positive face of others in relation to oneself. In this sense, it is defined not only by Social distance/closeness, but also by the person's relative position in the hierarchical social relations. The study of politeness from the point of view of pragmatics reveals a strong relation to the concepts of activity types and role-relation. The ' proposed different perspectives of politeness are the social norm perspective, the utterance perspective, and the pragmatic perspective. The pragmatic perspective as it has been largely defined is categorized into four headings, namely: the conversational maxim view, the face management view, the pragmatic scale view, the conversational contract view.

The concept of activity types plays a crucial role in the study of pragmatics - more specifically - politeness. Knowing the nature of an activity type determines the degree of politeness in a verbal communication. This part of discussion is based on Thomas's suggestions concerning a number of categories in which an activity

196 type description could be included. These are:

1. The goals of the participants

2. Allowable contributions

3. Cultural differences, which includes the topics of (a) the degree to which

Gricean Maxims are adhered to or are suspended and (b) the degree to which interpersonal maxims are adhered to or are suspended

4. Turn-taking and topic control

5. Pragmatic parameters. (1995:194-6)

It is to be mentioned here that there are two perspectives in role-relation topic: the social view and the linguistic view. An interactant's social role is based on an activity role. In addition, an interactant's activity role depends largely on the nature of the activity type and the choice of the interactant in placing one's activity role at a spot along a scale between the social role (fonnal) and personal relationship role

(informal).

Different models for politeness have been suggested as possible frameworks of understanding for investigations of cross-cultural communication. Most of researchers would agree that the teaching of politeness should be based on systematic pragmatic principles derived from empirical research rather than on haphazard lists of prescribed words and phrases, which are thought to be polite in an abstract sense as it is done for the researches with the help of different

197 examples through novels.

In one politeness framework, Brown and Levinson (1987) propose that power, distance, and rank of imposition work together with face wants and needs to determine the appropriateness of specific utterances in interpersonal communication. They note that the interior concept of face is subject to cultural specifications of many sorts, but on the other hand:

"Notions of face naturally link up to some of the most fundamental cultural ideas about the nature of the social persona: honor and virtue, shame and redemption, and thus to religious concepts. [...] This emergent character is not something for which our cun-ent theoretical models are well equipped."

(1987: 62)

One cannot say that an utterance is more polite than others, nor can one assume that a sub-maxim (of conversational maxims) or a super-strategy (of face management) or a need (of pragmatics scales) is valued higher than others unless an activity type or a role-relation is assigned. Thus, the study of the theories should take the key concepts of activity types and role-relation into consideration.

5.12 Management of Discourse

A language is a set of cover terms for grammatical structures, which put these terms together to form meaningful utterances. Moreover, it conveys a set of attitudes. That is not to say that language shapes thoughts and detemiines the thinking method, but it is a fact that people do things with words differently in

198 different languages.

Linguists argue that the degrees of meaning of lexical items are related to underlying cultural models. Effective cross-cultural communication takes place when one can converse fluently with speakers of that language and also knows the nuances of common linguistic courtesy that exist in that language. What is an acceptable expression of linguistic politeness in one language may be an expression of impoliteness in another language. For example, the common fomn of rejecting or refusing a request in India, which is a kind of voice with shaking hands and not looking at the addressee's eyes, can never happen in Iran.

Modern theories of linguistic politeness tend to be grounded in the essential concept of face-threatening acts as fomiulated by Brown and Levinson. As a result, relatively inadequate attention has been paid to the ways in which politeness can also be a function of shared understandings concerning the appropriateness of discourse-staging strategies.

Politeness and impoliteness concerns cultural and social status such as seniority in social rank (employer, employee), age (elders-youngers), gender (men-women), high and low social positions, roles of each person in the society, social values.

Manners and gestures are usually used to show politeness and impoliteness.

5.13 The CP. the PP. and Feelings

It is noted that politeness has a sociological significance beyond the theoretical rules, nomis, and prefaced situations. By this assumption that there is also a

199 potential for aggression as it disanns all the presupposed conditions and maices

possible communication between potentially aggressive parties, so that the non­

communication of the polite attitude will be read not merely as the absence of that

attitude, but as the inverse, the holding of an aggressive attitude.

The attribution of an aggressive attitude to impolite individuals follows from the fact

that polite behavior is seen as the result of self-imposed constraints that have their

origin in the intention to undo the external effects of domestic aggression. Hence,

impolite persons will be interpreted as people who put themselves outside of the

order of a civilized figuration.

Rationalization is characteristic of a more civilizing process than what is called

shame and emban-assment. This aspect, , of course, can be attributed to the fact that the decrease of the threshold of emban-assment is one of the central effects of the development toward self-constraint that characterizes the civilizing process and eventually results in the behavior, what is seen impoliteness behavior.

Notions of face link up to very fundamental cultural ideas about the nature of the social persona: honor, virtue, shame, redemption, etc. Con-espondingly, it can be observed that the non-communication of the polite attitude nonmally is

accompanied by feelings of shame, hate, and embarrassment.

For that matter, theory of the civilizing process may in last analysis yield a

perspective from which politeness is not seen as "a major source of deviation from

rational efficiency" (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 95) but, instead, as the rational

200 way to behave given the self-imposed limits of civilized and pacified figurations.

Privacy Is one of the main problems in intercultural communication. In some cultures there are rules governing human interaction regarding maintenance of personal privacy. Violation of personal privacy leads to communication breakdown and social dishannony. In some cultures, the boundary between personal privacy and public property is not clear. This is revealed in various speech situations and discourses such as gossip, personal inquiry, and correspondence.

As it has been discussed before, to behave in the limitations of linguistic rules In the daily interactions is out of question because it is obvious that one cannot control his/her behavior to have normal attitude as s/he shows in all the other interactions. Participants may talk more than required (as it happens generally) and they violate Grice's maxim of Quantity, Manner, and Quality. This can be considered as one of the similarities between breaking the politeness principle and the cooperative principle.

5.14 The CP and the PP in Writing

So far, it has been discussed the CP and PP as they apply to conversational behavior and oral communication. However, the two principles can be used In writing to ensure the effective exchange of infomnatlon and the successful establishment or maintenance of social relationships. It should be again refen-ed to the writing task described above with the consideration of this point of view that writing violates those principles in several ways:

201 - First, the letter violates maxim of Quantity by providing more information than is

required.

- Second, the author ignores the CP relation criteria because s/he may include

information in'elevant to what the receiver wants to know.

- Third, the aspect of the letter that gives information and expresses thoughts is wordy and repetitious, thus violating the manner category.

It must be pointed out that violating the CP is not simply a matter of inefficiently communicating information; it also affects the successful establishment or maintenance of social relationships—largely because a letter with unnecessary information, irrelevant details, and redundant expressions is boring. Yet the letter is far more repulsive in its violation of the PP. Two conclusions may be drawn from the analysis of the letter in the light of the CP and the PP:

- First, the two principles are generally both at work in guiding writing. This is because writing combines the two uses of language with almost equal importance.

- Second, in actual writing, the PP in the interactional use of language often plays a dominant role because the basic rule is that:

"Unless you are polite to your neighbor, the channel of communication between you will break down, and you will no longer be able to borrow his tools." (Leech. 1988:112)

This is the very reason that awareness of the interactional use of language is of

202 vital importance for writers and why the CP and the PP may be desirable principles to apply in writing. The lack of awareness of how to use these important rules and principles in writing not only by many EFL (English as Foreign Language) learners but also unfortunately by most of the general students of foreign languages (even by native speakers) can cause undesirable consequences.

5.15 Imolicature and Principles

An implicature, as it has been explained before, is something meant, implied, or suggested distinct from what is said. Implicatures can be part of sentence meaning or dependent on conversational context, and can be conventional or unconventional. Conversational implicatures have become one of the principal subjects of pragmatics. An important conceptual and methodological issue in is how to distinguish senses and entailments from conventional implicatures. Implicature has been invoked for a variety of purposes, from defending controversial semantics claims in philosophy to explain lexical gaps in linguistics.

Grice was the first who systematically studies cases in which what a speaker means, differs from what the sentence used by the speaker means and who created the term implicature, and classified the phenomenon, developed an influential theory to explain and predict conversational implicatures, and describe how they are understood. The cooperative principle and associated maxims play a central role in this matter. Other authors have focused on principles of politeness and communicative efficiency.

203 Critics observe that speakers often have goals other than the cooperative and efficient exchange of infomnation, and that conventions are always arbitrary to some extent. Considering the following dialogue from Absalom, Absalom, and its explanation can clear this notion:

"Case dismissed." He said

"You get a receipt." Shreve said. "You get a signed receipt for that money."

The Squire looked at Shreve mildly. "Case dismissed." He said without raising his voice. "(1995:143)

If this was a typical exchange, Squire meant that he is not going to give any receipt. However, the sentence he uttered does not mean that he is not going to give the receipt. Hence, Squire did not say that he is not doing he implied it. Thus,

Squire implicated that he is not giving the receipt; that 'he is not' ... was his implicature.

In addition to identifying and classifying the phenomenon of implicature, Grice developed a theory designed to explain and predict conversational implicatures.

He also sought to describe how such implicatures are understood. Grice postulated a general cooperative principle, and four maxims specifying how to be cooperative. He asserted that it is common knowledge that people generally follow these rules for efficient communication. (1975: 26-30)

Implicatures like that in above-mentioned dialogue are explained in terms of the

Maxim of Relation, and are, therefore, called relevance implicatures. Squire would

204 have violated the maxim of Relation, it is claimed, unless his contribution was relevant to the purpose of the conversation. If Squire is being cooperative, then he is trying to answer Shreve's request. The response, especially without raising his voice, shows that Shreve's request is failed. On the other hand, Squire must have intended to communicate that he is not giving any receipt, which in this situation by giving direct and negative response to Shreve's request he violates the politeness principle.

To reach to the conversational goals other than the efficient communication of infomriation, one should observe not only the cooperative principle, but also the principle of style.

5.16 Principle of Stvie

Pragmatics dictates to the participants in any social interaction to follow the rules but as it has been discussed, it is not always possible to be in the limitations of the principles, norms and to maintain the linguistics' theories in speaking and writing.

By being stylish, one can be beautiful, distinctive, entertaining, and interesting.

Figures of speech and other devices liven up the speaking, writing skills on the other hand, the perspicuity is infringed, and maxim of Manner is violated.

One sometimes embellishes a narration to make it more interesting; in this case, the violation of maxim of Quality is takes place by deleting boring or ugly details even when they are important (violation of maxim of Quantity). If one would like to be stylish in speaking and writing, s/he has to amplify his/her politeness scales and

205 goes beyond the normal, predetennined rules as it has been shown previously.

The matter of sacrificing one for other is a dynamic contestation between pragmatists but it is to note that this is dependent on the cultural, social situation of the interlocutors.

5.17 Politeness and the Violation of the CP

By being polite, tactful, praising, generous, agreeable, and sympathetic, speakers are faced with the different violations of the cooperative principle as follows:

1. Speakers frequently withhold infomriation that would be offensive *or disappointing to the hearer, violating the Maxim of Quantity.

2. Speakers often exaggerate in order to please or flatter, and utter white lies in order to spare the hearer's feelings, violating the Maxim of Quality (it has been largely discussed).

3. People pick safe topics (e.g., the weather) to stress agreement and communicate an interest in maintaining good relations—but violating the Maxim of

Relation.

4. Euphemisms avoid mentioning the unmentionable, but in the process violate maxims of Manner and Quantity.

By giving the possibility of clashes among these principles, speakers often conversationally implicate something even though they are presumed to be observing the principles of style or politeness rather than the cooperative principle.

In the before-mentioned example, Shreve may correctly presume that Squire Is

206 simply making an excuse, or even trying to mislead him into thinl(ing that he is not

going to give any receipt. Squire may realize that Shreve will presume such a

thing. However, it does not stop him from implicating that he will not give that

receipt.

Even when style/politeness is not issues, the cooperative principle may fail to apply

t)ecause there is no conversation, or because one has no mutually accepted

purpose. Speakers and writers can use quantity implicatures and a wide range of figures of speech when they are not conversing with anyone. When there is a conversation, the speaker may try to change the subject, engage in idle chitbhat, or fight with his or her interlocutor.

5.18 Relevance Theory

The most influential alternative to Grice's theory is the relevance theory developed by Sperber and Wilson (1986). It has been proposed a definition of relevance and suggested what factors might be involved in assessments of degrees of relevance.

It has been also argued that all Grice's maxims can be replaced by a single principle of relevance—that the speaker tries to be as relevant as possible in the circumstances—which, when suitably elaborated, can handle the full range of data that Grice's maxims were designed to explain (Wilson and Sperber 1986: 381).

The multiplicity of principles in the Gricean framewori< could be eliminated by omitting the maxims and putting forward only the cooperative principle. The question is whether any principle general enough to hold in all cases of implicature

207 is capable of yielding specific predictions. Relevance is used in a highly technicai sense, roughly meaning communicative efficiency.

"The relevance of a proposition increases with the number of contextual implications it yields and decreases as the amount of processing needed to obtain them increases." (1986:382)

The "contextual implications" of a proposition are propositions that can be deduced, by a restricted set of rules, from it together with the set of "contextual assumptions," and that cannot be deduced from it or the contextual assumptions alone (1986:381). "Contextual assumptions" are items of background knowledge relevant to the conversation, including "the propositions that have most recently been processed," others logically and conceptually related to them, and input information from the perceptual environment (381-382). These remarks suggest that a speaker examines alternative propositions, evaluates the number of contextual implications per unit processing cost for each, and chooses to convey that proposition with the highest ratio.

5.19 PrinciolB of Relevance

The Sperber and Wilson's principle is an application of cost-benefit analysis. The intuitive idea is that speakers try to provide as much new infomnation (or misinformation) for the processing cost as possible: "Make your contribution be the one with the maximum ratio of contextual implications to processing cost.

(1986:381)

208 The principle of relevance does not imply any of Grice's principles. Nothing guarantees that the contribution with the greatest number of contextual implications is required by the accepted purpose of the conversation; true or justified, and thus, infonnative or perspicuous and brief. The principle of relevance seems to clash with the principle of politeness as badly as the cooperative principle does. The following example from Absalom, Absalom can elaborate this meaning:

- "Is you all seen anything of a quarter down here?" Luster said.

- "What quarter?"

- "The one I had here this moming." Luster said. "I lost itsomewhfere. It fell through this hole in my pocket. If I don't find it I can't go to the show tonight."

- "Where'd you get a quarter, boy? Find it in white folks' pocket while they ain't looking." (1995:12)

It seems reasonable to assume that "you find a quarter in folks' pocket" is at least as easy to process as "you can't have or find one accidentally, so you are a thief."

In addition, it implies everything that the latter does in any context. Therefore, "you stole that coin" would seem to have the greater ratio of contextual implications to processing cost. Nevertheless, considerations of Luster's feelings, among other things, will lead the third party to prefer the less efficient contribution although the above sentence "find it in white folks' pocket while they ain't looking" violates the

PP but still it is better than "you are a thief!.

On other occasions, Sperber and Wilson formulate the principle of relevance in

209 terms of "optimal relevance" rather than "maximal."

"An ostensive stimulus is optimally relevant to an addressee if and only if it has enough contextual effects to be worth his attention and puts him to no unjustified processing effort in accessing them." (1987: 743)

Optimal relevance does not pick out a unique contribution to the conversation.

Many propositions will be infonnative enough to be worth processing other than those that are actually implicated. Like Grice, Sperber and Wilson postulate that the speaker is presumed to be observing their key conversational principle.

Relevance theorists need to show that hearers commonly have opinions about such maximal or optimal relevance. A final problem for the principle is that the background infomiation, in temis of which contextual implications are defined, is indeterminate.

5.20 Speaker Implicature and Intention

To implicate something is for the speaker to mean (imply, suggest) something without saying It, It seems clear that what a speaker means is detennined by the speaker's intentions, which determine speaker meaning as a matter of debate. On

Grice's view (1975) to mean that P by E is to utter E with the intention of producing the belief that P in one's audience. Grice's definition seems to have many counterexamples. Speakers who issue reminders are not trying to produce belief.

People talking to him or herself, or answering a teacher's question, are not even trying to produce activated or occurrent belief. People talking to babies or pets do

210 not expect their audience to recognize what they mean, and people talking to the dead l^now that their audience cannot thinic or recognize anything. People sometimes speal< in a particular language despite the fact—and occasionally because of the fact—that they l^now their audience does not understand it.

If speaker meaning, on the other hand, is a matter of speaker intention, so speaker implicatures can be recognized or predicted by any of the methods, which are used to infer intentions from behavior. While the existence of conversational implicatures does not depend on the assumption that the speaker is observing the cooperative principle, conversational principles may play a rdle in the recognition of implicatures. Indeed, the cooperative principle and associated maxims, along vA\h the principles of style and politeness, seem to play the same indirect role in implicature recognition that known tendencies play in inductive inference generally.

Since speakers tend to observe the cooperative principle, and hearers know this in a vague sort of way, hearers tend to assume that particular speakers are cooperating, in the absence of evidence to the contrary. Uncooperative behavior is no more difficult to recognize than cooperative behavior. For example, a student tries to manipulate language in an effort to avoid telling s/he is not ready for examination and it is obvious that one uses something other than Grice's working out schema.

The Gricean theory is that what the speaker says is determined by semantics, while what the speaker implicates Is determined by what the speaker says with pragmatics. Levinson in Grice's Circle states that many of the processes involved

211 in determining what is said, such as fixing pronominal reference, disambiguating, etc, "involve exactly those inferential mechanisms that characterize Gricean pragmatics." (2000: Ch. 3).

Based on Gricean theory, it is unsurprising that conversational principles play the same role in infem'ng both what is said and what is implicated in this case what a speaker says is detennined by the linguistic meaning of the words and what the speaker meant by them on that occasion. In addition, speaker meaning is determined by speaker intention.

Saul (2001, 2002) and M. S. Green (2002) have suggested that implicature should be making calculability a defensible condition for its application, which is seen as a condition for the speaker to implicate something properly, on the more common intentional conception.

5.21 Sentence Implicature and Convention

English speakers commonly use sentences of the form 'Some employees are sick' to implicate 'not all employees are sick,' but they hardly implicate 'more than 20% of all employees are sick.' There is regularity in usage and interpretation, which are unrestricted, socially useful, serving, and the purpose of communication.

Implicature conventions are not as arbitrary as lexical conventions. Conventional regularities are seldom perfect. Thus, even though it is conventional to use 'bank' to mean 'river bank,' speakers more often use it to mean something else.

212 Quantity implicatures are examples of conventional conversational implicatures.

When Grice talked about conventional implicatures, he was refening to

conventional semantic implicatures. These implicatures exist t>ecause of the

conventions that give individual words their meanings. Conversational implicatures

are always indirect: implying one thing means another. In some cases, this

indirectness is conventional. The following example from Go Down Moses can help

reader to reach to the goal:

Walter looked about for a moment. "I know it," he said. "I've even seen

your deer. I was in here last Monday. He ain't Nothing but a yeariing."

"A yearling?" Boon said. He was panting from the walking. His face still

looked a little wild. "If the one I saw was any yearling, I'm still in

kindergarten."

"Then I must have seen a rabbit," Walter said. "I always heard you quit

school altogether two years before the first grade." (P: 129)

As it was discussed before, Walter statement does not have any meaning but to

highlight Boon's misunderstanding to recognize a yearling from a deer by

breaching the CP (maxim of Manner, Quality and Quantity) and the PP by violating

Tact maxim, Approbation maxim and Modesty maxim). In this situation, Walter

implies one thing but means another thing and respects the conversational

implicatures.

The most familiar examples of conventional implicature are the figures of speech. It

213 is conventional to use a sentence to mean the opposite (irony), or something stronger (litotes), or something similar (metaphor). There is also a convention whereby a sentence is used to implicate requested infonnation by making a statement closely related to it by Implication. For example, "Kicked the buckef is used as a metaphor to implicate that someone died. The difference is that with idioms, the metaphor "died," is meant directly and is a non-compositional meaning for the expression. Consequently, idiomatic meanings have been "detached," whereas conventional implicatures are "non-detachable."

One set of studies seeks to understand hbw implicature conventions reflect cultural scripts and what happens to the implicatures of a sentence when it is embedded in compound sentences. Conversational principles do specify common interests that conversational implicature conventions serve: communication of information, politeness, style, and efficiency. Since conventional practices sustain themselves by serving socially useful purposes, the fact that speakers strive to be cooperative, polite, stylish, and efficient sustains implicature conventions.

It should be considered also that politeness research has two aspects: the traditional view based on the dual premises of Grice's cooperative principle and speech act theory (Lakoff 1973, Brown and Levinson 1978-1987, Leech 1983). On the other hand, the post-modern view, which rejects these premises and substitutes them by an emphasis on participants' own perceptions of politeness and on the discursive struggle over politeness (Ellen 2001, Mills 2003, Watts

2003).

214 By contrasting these two views, it is to consider not only their points of disagreement, but also, crucially, points where the two views coincide, bringing to light their common underiying assumptions.

5.22 Conclusion

In the present chapter, the analysis has been made of the relation between the cooperative principle and the politeness principle. With the help of examples chosen from William Faulkner's selected novels and those from daily social interaction, the differences and the similarities between these principles and their related maxims in temi^of their function^ have been shown. Meaning between lines, mutual knowledge, common background, cultural nomris, feelings, gender discrimination (or simply gender differences), etc. are some of the factors which can effect the social Interaction and they play not only an important role to change the meaning, style of speaking or writing but also they violate some of the maxims when they are observed. In this case, they break pragmatic rules and nomis. In the following chapter. Different possibilities of further researches in this area and the potential study in William Faulkner's novels from other circumstances will be indicated.

215