Pragmatics and Conversations

Conversational Implicature
A key notion in the cooperative principle is the concept of conversational implicature. Conversational implicature refers to the inference a hearer makes about speaker’s intended meaning htat arises from their interpretation of the literal meaning of what is said, the conversational principle and its maxims.
Politeness And Face
Two furher in the area of pragmatics are politeness and face. Lakoff propeses three maxims of politeness these are :

• Don not impose

• Give option

• Make your receiver feel good.

Politeness principle and cooperative principles are often in conflict with each other, however. For example, if a friends says “do you like my new haircut?” and ‘I don’t ‘ might not follow the maxim of quality in order to avoid hurting their feelings. These are therefore situations in which one principle might be come more important than another.
Leech has proposed a politeness principle whish like the cooperative principle, is describe as a set of maxims that, he argues speakers assume others are following. These are :

• Maxim of fact

• Maxim of generosity

• Maxin of approbation

• Maxim of modesty

• Maxim of sympathy

Leech argues that the first of these maxims, the axim of fact, is the most important in English speaking communities. In this view three things bear on the degree of fact that is appropriate to a given situation, these are :

• The level of soct or benefit of the proposed action to the speaker or hearer.

• The amount of choice or optionally the speaker allows the hearer

• The amount of effort required by the hearer to work out what the speakers wants.

Positive And Negative Politeness
Positive politness strategies :

• Showing closeness, intimacy, rapport and solidarity

• Notice or attend to the other person’s wants needs or possessions

• Intensify your interest, approval or sympathy for other person.

• Use in group identity markers ;ex. In group address forms, jargon andslang

• Seek agreement with the other person

• Avoid disagreement with other person

• Presuppose or assert common groun between each other.

• Assert or presuppose knowledge of concern for the other person’s wants

• Make offers

• Make promises

• Be optimistic about somethings

• Assume or assert reciprocity

• Include each other in an activity

• Give gifts express sympathy, understanding or cooperation to other person

Negative politeness strategies :

• Giving the other person choices, allowing them to maintain their freedom

• Be indirect

• Don’t presume or assume

• Be pessimistic about somethings

• Minimise imposition on the other person

• Give deference

• Apologise to other person

• Impersonalise things

• State the imposition as general asocial rule or obligation by using request as a noun rather than wants a verb

• Go on record as incurring a debt or not in indebting the other person.

• Face Threatening Acts

A face threatening acts that is oriented towards a person’s negative face might express deference or emphasise to the importance of other person’s concern. It might even express reluctance or include an apology, that is might use a number of brown and levinson’s negative politeness strategies. A face saving act that is oriented towards a person positive face might express closeness or solidarity and emphasise that both speaker have the same gaol using one or a number of brown and levinson’s positive politeness strategies.
According to brown and levinson, when we perform a face threatening act, we choose from a number of strategies these are :

• Do the act baldly., without redress ex. Give me a pen’

• Do the action record baldly but with a positive politeness strategy. Ex : how about letting me use your pen?

• Do the action record baldly but with a negative positive politeness strategy, ex. could you lend me a pen?

• Do the act off-record, ex : I fogot my pen

• Do not do the act, ex: I do nothing