Syntax has rules; Pragmatics has principles
2.1 The Cooperative Principles (CP)
a. The maxim of quantity: (not too much, and not to little information)
- Make your contribution as informative as required;
- Do not make your contribution more informative than required.
b. The maxim of Quality:
- Do not say what you believe to be false;
- Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
c. The Maxim of relation:
- Make your contribution relevant
d. The maxim of manner:
Be perspicuous (expressed clearly), and specifically:
- avoid obscurity (ketidakjelasan)
- avoid ambiguity
- be brief
- be orderly (rapi, tertib)
CP is to cooperate with your conversational partner.
Look at the illustration: (Dostoyevsky and the rubber ball: A pragmatic anecdote)
When my daughter Sara was about six years old, we stayed for a couple of days at the house of some friends. These people were lovers of books, and their whole living-room was filled with them: there were bookshelves all around, all the way up to the ceiling.
While Sara was playing, somehow her little bouncing (mental) ball managed to get itself lost behind a row of books on one of the lower shelves; but since she hadn’t seen it disappear, she didn’t know where to look for it. Meanwhile, the owner of the books, who was reading his newspaper in an armchair nearby, had observed the ball’s wayward course. So, when Sara asked him if he had seen her ball, he replied:
Why don’t you look behind Volume 6 of Dostoyevski’s Collected works?
Why is such an answer a non-cooperative one?
1. It violates the maxim of manner by offering information in a manner which is not ‘perspicuous’ (tidak jelas).
2. It is against the maxim of quantity:
Too much information for one who doesn’t know anything about Dostoyevsky, and for whom a book is just another material object in her world, possessing a particular shape and colour, but not much more.
Too liitle information, because what is proffered (diajukan) is not enough for the little girl wanting to retrieve (mendapat kembali) her lost toy
CP in itself cannot explain (i) why people are often so indirect in conveying what they mean; and (ii) what is the relation between sense and force when non-declarative types of sentence are being considered.
2.2. The principle of Politeness
Leech says: Some illocutions ( e.g. orders) are inherently impolite, and others (e.g. offers) are inherently polite”. Being inherently polite implies being always polite, without regard for the contextual factors that may determine politeness in a particular situation.
There are at least two things one could argue are wrong with such a view:
1. First, that the social position of the speakers relative to one another may
indicate different politeness values for individual cases. The existence of
social hierarchy may preempt the use of politeness altogether.
2. Second, the politeness of the order may depend on other factors, such as the
positive or negative effects on a person who is given the order.
”have another sandwich “ (the order is beneficial) – Ok.
“ Peel the potatoes” ( a hardship on the hearer) – it sounds impolite
According to Leech the principle of politeness is to minimize the effects of
impolite statements or expressions and to maximize the politeness of polite
illocutions.
Look at the examples:
Parent: Someone’s eaten the icing off the cake. (Compare to You have eaten the
icing off the cake.)
Child: It wasn’t ME.
Thus, the parent’s utterance, while violating the maxim of quantity under the Cooperative Principle, in as much as it is not informative as possible, or may be not relevant at all, obeys the the principle of politeness, and thus rescues the Cooperative Principle ‘from serious trouble’
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