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PAUL grice: 'Logic and conversation' in P. Cole and J. L. Morgan (eds.): Syntax and Semantics Volume 3: Speech Acts. Academic Press 1975, page 48

I would like to be able to think of the standard type of conversa­tional practice not merely as something that all or most do in fact follow but as something that it is reasonable for us to follow, that we should not abandon. For a time, I was attracted by the idea that observance of the CP [co-operative principle] and the maxims, in a talk exchange, could be thought of as a quasi-contractual matter, with parallels outside the realm of discourse. If you pass by when I am struggling with my stranded car, I no doubt have some degree of expectation that you will offer help, but once you join me in tinkering under the hood, my expectations become stronger and take more specific forms (in the absence of indications that you are merely an incompetent meddler); and talk exchanges seemed to me to exhibit, character­istically, certain features that jointly distinguish cooperative transactions:

1. The participants have some common immediate aim, like getting a car mended; their ultimate aims may, of course, be

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independent and even in conflict—each may want to get the car mended in order to drive off, leaving the other stranded. In characteristic talk exchanges, there is a common aim even if, as in an over-the-wall chat, it is a second order one, namely that each party should, for the time being, identify himself with the transitory conversational interests of the other.

2. The contributions of the participants should be dovetailed, mutually dependent.

3. There is some sort of understanding (which may be explicit but which is often tacit) that, other things being equal, the transaction should continue in appropriate style unless both parties are agreeable that it should terminate. You do not just shove off or start doing something else.

But while some such quasi-contractual basis as this may apply to some cases, there are too many types of exchange, like quarreling and letter writing, that it fails to fit comfortably.

0 Can you spell out why 'quarreling and letter writing' do not fit comfortably with the conditions presented here?

t> What would you call the three 'features' listed here if you were to make them into maxims for cooperative transactions?

t> Grice emphasizes the word 'reasonable' as he describes his consideration of the cooperative principle and his maxims as a kind of contract. Would the cooperative principle, the maxims, and the three features listed here be treated as 'reasonable' in all societies and cultures?

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J. l.morgan: 'Two types of convention in indirect speech acts' in P. Cole (ed.): Syntax and Semantics Volume 9: Pragmatics. Academic Press 1978, pages 277-8

Just above I presented cases involving particular expressions and the conventionalization of their use for certain implicatures, as in the case of If you've seen one, you've seen them all, or the original example, Can you pass the salt? I said in the latter case that it had become a convention of usage to use this expression, with its lit­eral meaning, to convey an implicature of request. The question

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now arises, can there be this kind of conventionalization of rules of conversation? I think there can. For example, it is more or less conventional to challenge the wisdom of a suggested course of action by questioning the mental health of the suggestor, by ANY appropriate linguistic means, as in:

37. Are you crazy?

38. Have you lost your mind?

39. Are you out of your gourd?

and so on. Most Americans have two or three stock expressions usable as answers to obvious questions, as in:

40. Is the Pope Catholic?

41. Do bagels wear bikinis?

But for some speakers the convention does not specify a particu­lar expression, and new ones are manufactured as they are needed. It seems that here a schema for implicature has been con­ventionalized: Answer an obvious yes/no question by replying with another question whose answer is very obvious and the same as the answer you intend to convey.

In a similar way, most speakers have a small number of expres­sions usable as replies to assertions, with the implicature that the assertion is transparently false—(42), for example:

(42) Yes, and I'm Marie the Queen of Romania.

But again, for some speakers the convention specifies only a general strategy, rather than a particular expression: To convey that an assertion is transparently false, reply with another asser­tion even more transparently false.

I> Do you know any other 'stock expressions' for these types of occasions (request, challenge, answer to obvious questions, reply to a false assertion)? How would you explain (to some­one learning English as a foreign language, for example) how to work out the communicated meaning from the literal meaning?

[> The author uses the term 'convention' in talking about the kinds of implicatures involved here. Do you think that the examples presented here can be analyzed in terms of conven­tional implicatures (as discussed in Chapter 5, pages 45-6)?

O What do you think about the idea that an implicature may begin by being based on inference, but can become so conven­tionalized that no one has to make the inference any more? Is that the same process as we use in interpreting idioms?

Chapter 6

Speech acts and events