The Cooperative Principle alone cannot fully explain how people talk. It explains how conversational implicature is given rise to but it does not tell us why people do not say directly what they mean. Why, for instance, do people say “Could you give me a lift?” instead of “Give me a lift”? The reason has to do with another principle which applies to conversation in addition to the Cooperative Principle—the Politeness Principle (PP).
In most cases, the indirectness is motivated by considerations of politeness. Politeness is usually regarded by most pragmatists as a means or strategy which is used by a speaker to achieve various purposes, such as saving face, establishing and maintaining harmonious social relations in conversation. Leech looks on politeness as crucial in accounting for “why people are often so indirect in conveying what they mean”. He thus puts forward the Politeness Principle so as to “rescue the Cooperative Principle” in the sense that politeness can satisfactorily explain exceptions to and apparent deviations from the CP. Therefore, his Politeness Principle is not just an addition to Grice’s CP, but a necessary complement needed for cases where the CP fails to offer a reasonable explanation.
Following Grice’s presentation of the CP, Leech puts forward six maxims of the Politeness Principle which runs as follows:
Minimize (other things being equal) the expression of impolite beliefs and maximize (other things being equal) the expression of polite beliefs.
The six maxims of the PP:
Maxim of Tact (in directives and commissives)
Maximize benefit to other
Maxim of Generosity (in directives and commissives)
Maxim of Approbation (in expressives and assertives)
Minimize dispraise of other
Maxim of Modesty (in expressive and assertives)
Maximize dispraise of self
Maxim of Agreement (in assertives)
Minimize disagreement between self and other
Maximize agreement between self and other Maxim of Sympathy
Minimize antipathy between self and other
Maximize sympathy between self and other
Briefly, this principle requires speakers to “minimize the expression of impolite beliefs”. These maxims can help to explain, among other things, why certain forms are more acceptable than others. In British culture, for example, the Politeness Principle probably accounts for the use of “white lies” in conversation. For instance, if someone invites another person to a party and that person wants to decline the invitation, rather than saying “No, I don’t want to come” the person might pretend to have another engagement and say “Thank you, but I’m going out that evening”. Of course, after repeated invitations which are repeatedly declined with statements like “I’m afraid I’m busy” or “I have another engagement”, the inviter will probably “get the message” and stop inviting. White lies must of course be properly deceptive. Imagine someone who declined an invitation for dinner the following weekend by saying “I think I’m going to have a headache”. In its transparency this “white lie” is a failure—it breaks the Politeness Principle—and is perhaps even more impolite than a simple direct refusal.
Very often a superficial view is taken of politeness in spoken language—it is associate with being superficially “nice”, and with formal, mechanical exptras such as the word
The Maxim of Approbation will explain why a compliment like “What a marvelous meal you cooked!” is highly valued while “What an awful meal you cooked!” is not socially accepted. Thus when criticism is inevitable, understatement is preferred as a show of reluctance to dispraise (Cf. “Her composition was not so good as it might have been”). The maxim of modesty accounts for the benign nature of utterances like “How stupid of me!” and the offensive nature of “How clever of me!” Regulated by the maxim of agreement, people tend to exaggerate their common ground first, even when much difference is to follow:
a: The book is very well written.
b: Yes, well written as a whole, but there are some rather boring patches, don’t you think?
In the following example, notice how much effort the second speaker puts into trying to hide the fact that the first speaker thinks one thing (the female being discussed is “small”) and he thinks t he opposite.
a: She’s small, isn’t she?
b: Well, she’s sort of small…certainly not very large…but actually…I would have to say that she is large rather than small.
This conversation is very different indeed from the following simple expression of disagreement:
a: She’s small, isn’t she? b: No, she’s large.
If expressing disagreement is inevitable, then speakers attempt to soften it in various ways, by expressing regret at the disagreement (“I’m sorry, but I can’t agree with you”). Notice in this example, the use of the word
The Maxim of Sympathy has such a regulative force that we invariably interpret (50) as a
congratulation and (51) as a condolence:
I’m delighted to hear about your cat.
(Most likely the cat has just won a prize in the cat-show.)
I’m terribly sorry to hear about your cat. (Probably the cat has just died.)
It is argued that when the CP and PP are in contradiction, it is generally the CP maxims that get sacrificed. When the truth cannot be told for politeness sake, a white lie may be offered. In fact the PP is so powerful that people are often encouraged to violate its maxims in order to ensure a cooperative discourse (Don’t be too modest. Tell us everything you’ve achieved.” “If you find anything inadequate in the pater, don’t hesitate to point it out.”) Irony is a means to solve the conflict between the CP an PP— when the truth is too offensive to be told, an ironic utterance assumes a polite surface while delivering an unpleasant true message underneath.
An interesting area of investigation is the study of different cultures and languages in relation to the social principles of conversation. For example, some cultures may place a very high value on the Maxim of Agreement and speakers may show this by repeating every word the other speaker has just said—as if they agree totally—and then giving their own opinion. The British, for example, are supposedly well- known for the use of “Yes, but…” replies. There is much interesting and important research to be done in this area.