The success of a conversation depends not only on what speakers say but on their whole approach to the interaction. “Our talk exchanges do not normally consist of a succession of disconnected remarks, and would not be rational if they did. They are characteristically, to some degree at least, cooperative efforts; and each participant recognizes in them, to some extent, a common purpose or set of purposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction” (Grice 1975: 45). People adopt a “cooperative principle” when they communicate with each other: they try to get along with each other by following certain conversational “maxims” that underlie the efficient use of language. Four basic maxims have been proposed.
The maxim of quality states that speakers’ contributions to a conversation ought to be true. They should not say what they believe to be false, nor should they say anything for which they lack adequate evidence.
The maxim of quantity states that contributions should be as informative as is required for the purposes of the conversation. One should say neither too little nor too much.
The maxim of relevance states that conversations should clearly relate to the purpose of the exchange.
The maxim of manner states that the contribution should be perspicuous, in particular, that it should be orderly and brief, avoiding obstructing ambiguity.
In short, these maxims specify what participants have to do in order to converse in a maximally efficient, rational, co-operative way: they should speak sincerely, relevantly and clearly, while providing sufficient information. But the use of terms principle and maxim does not mean that the cooperative principle and its maxims will be followed by everybody all the time. If people violate these maxims deliberately, listeners may draw inference from what speakers have said and work out the implicature of the utterance. But for SM users, violation of maxims is done passively.
Then let us take a look at the following short messages recorded in the author’s mobile phone.
No.1. A: “Still busy?”---9:40 pm
(Conversation started, but A’s purpose is confusing)
No.2. B: “Not too busy, what’s up?”---9:41 pm
(Actually B was very busy in his essay, may be writing, but B inferred that A must have something important to tell.)
No.3. A: “When you worked in the Computer Association, have you ever failed to negotiate with sponsors?”---9:46 pm
(It takes A 5 minutes to respond. He attempts to make his words appropriate. B has to suspend his work and wait for a direct answer. But this answer seems so irrelevant.)
No.4. B: “No”---9:47 pm
(B tries to concentrate on his work, so he responds briefly. A is quite frustrated by the failed negotiation and needs someone to comfort him. The single word “No” makes him think that if B is not busy, how B could be so cold.)
No.5. A: “Sorry, I thought you did, then, good night.”---9:49 pm
(Conversation has to be ended up unpleasantly)
No.6. B: “Good night.”---9:50 pm
(B is still unaware of A’s intention. He can do nothing but end conversation.)
The two participants of this short conversation violate the four maxims violations of maxims.
No.1 violates M of quantity. He says too little. He should state his purpose clearly.
No.2 violates M of quality. He says something that is false, but he has to.
No.3 Here A’s contribution in its literal meaning, fails to answer B’s question, and thus seems to violate at least the maxims of quantity and relevance. We might therefore expect A’s utterance to be interpreted as a non-co-operative response. Yet it is clear that despite this apparent failure of co-operation, we try to interpret A’s utterance as cooperative at some deeper level. We can assure that there could be some possible connection between No.2 and No.3. However, since it is a SM conversation, A and B could not see each other. B is actually in a hurry and he wants to go to the topic directly, but A wants a euphemistic way. Here SM is not powerful enough to connect the states of mind of the two persons.
No.4 also violates M of quantity. B is supposed to be considerate.
No.5 violates M of manner. Two sentences seem not orderly.
However, in our daily conversation, the implicatures of words are easily deduced. So why does the violation of co-operative principle in SM fail to enable people to work out the exact implicatures? There must be some other factors contributing to the understanding of words. We shall further discuss this point in the third section. Although the two participants of this short conversation do not violate maxims deliberately and purposefully, their words are misconstrued. And the misconstructions of SM can be sorted into three.
Firstly, the purpose of SM language is not definite, i.e., the functions of SM language are not clear. Linguists talk about the functions of language in an abstract sense, that is, not in terms of using language to chat, to think, to buy and sell, to read and write, to greet people, etc. To communicate our ideas is the usual answer to the question “why do we use language?” Indeed, this must surely be the most widely recognized function of language. Whenever we tell people about our circumstances or ourselves or ask for information about other selves, we are using language in order to exchange fact sand opinions. The use of language is often called “ideational or referential”. But it would be problematic to think of it as the only way we use language. Linguists summarize these practical functions of language like following: informative, interpersonal, performative, emotive, phatic, recreational and metalingual (Hu 2001: 10). Halliday proposes a theory of metafunctions of language that is language has IDEATIONAL, INTERPERSONAL, and Textual functions. Ideational function constructs a model of experience and constructs logical relations, interpersonal function enacts social relationships and textual function creates relevance to context (Halliday 1985: VIII).
转贴于 酷文网-论文下载中心 http://www.coolwen.net
共5页: 上一页 [1] 2 [3] [4] [5] 下一页
网摘收藏:
当前位置:
载入中...
-> 在百度中搜索：
-> 在Google中搜索：