THE RULES OF CONVERSATION

Abstract

Conversation is, by nature, cooperative. According to Grice (1975, 1978), individuals observe a general cooperative principle, based on the four maxims of Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Manner. These maxims request the speaker to provide a contribution that contains the right amount of information, that is true, that is relevant to the conversation, and that is perspicuous. Actually, people communicate much more than they literally say, since part of the meaning of their utterances is implied and has to be inferred by the listener through conversational implicature requiring inference.