Definition:
The assumption that participants in a conversation normally attempt to be informative, truthful, relevant, and clear.
See also:
- Conversation Analysis
- Conversational Grounding
- Conversational Implicature
- Cooperative Overlap
- Figurative Meaning
- Politeness Strategies
- Pragmatic Competence
- Pragmatics
- Principle of Least Effort
- Turn-Taking
Etymology:
Introduced by philosopher Paul Grice (1975; 1989)Observations:
- "We might then formulate a rough general principle which participants will be expected (ceteris paribus) to observe, namely: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. One might label this the Cooperative Principle."
(Paul Grice, "Logic and Conversation," 1975. Reprinted in Studies in the Way of Words. Harvard Univ. Press, 1989)
- "Grice fleshed out the cooperative principle in four conversational 'maxims,' which are commandments that people tacitly follow (or should follow) to further the conversation efficiently:
Quantity:
. . . People undoubtedly can be tight-lipped, long-winded, mendacious, cavalier, obscure, ambiguous, verbose, rambling, or off-topic. But on closer examination they are far less so than they could be, given the possibilities. . . . Because human hearers can count on some degree of adherence to the maxims, they can read between the lines, weed out unintended ambiguities, and connect the dots when they listen and read."- Say no less than the conversation requires.
- Say no more than the conversation requires.
- Don't say what you believe to be false.
- Don't say things for which you lack evidence.
- Don't be obscure.
- Don't be ambiguous.
- Be brief.
- Be orderly.
- Be relevant.
(Steven Pinker, The Stuff of Thought. Viking, 2007)
