the Summary of Intercultural Communication (11)

Principles and strategies of intercultural communication

Cooperative principle

Q: What is cooperative principle?
A:

• How effective communication in conversation is achieved in common social situations, that is, how listeners and speakers must act cooperatively and mutually accept one another to be understood in a particular way.
• Make your 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.

• Speakers (generally) observe the cooperative principle.
• Listeners (generally) assume that speakers are observing it.

Q: What are the conversational maxims?
A:

1. Maxim of quantity (quantity of information)
   Give the most helpful amount of information.
2. Maxim of quality (quality of information)
   Do not say what you believe to be false.
3. Maxim of relation
   Be relevant.
4. Maxim of manner
   Put what you say in the clearest, briefest, and most orderly manner.

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Different criterion and violations for different maxims:

Criterion	Violations
Informativeness	Redundancy, repetition, excessive brevity
Truth	Exaggeration, fantastic, description
Relevance	Digression
Clarity	Vagueness, obliqueness, metaphor

Breaking the maxims

• violate
• flout

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