The Psychological Foundations of the Grammar 77
cooperate with hearers and in so doing relieve hearers of some processing
costs. He puts forward the cooperative principle which is broken down into
four maxims.
The Cooperative Principle
QUANTITY: Give the right amount of information: i.e.- Make your contribution as informative as is required.
- Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
QUALITY: Try to make your contribution one that is true: i.e.- Do not say what you believe to be false
- Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
RELATION: Be relevant
MANNER: Be perspicacious; i.e.- Avoid obscurity of expression.
- Avoid ambiguity.
- Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)
- Be orderly
Taken together the four maxims emphasize the importance of the speaker
reducing as much as possible the hearer’s processing costs. One of the
ways a speaker can do this, as implied by maxim 1, is by signalling the
news value of the utterance. Leech (1983: 34–5) states that speakers aim to
create refl exive intentions (intentions whose fulfi lment is their recognition by
the intended recipient). Refl exive intentions grounded on mutuality, as
discussed earlier, appear unfeasible, (e.g. Bach and Harnish 1979: 15) but
those based upon individuals’ appreciations of their own cognitive environ-
ments appear sound. An individual’s cognitive environment is the know-
ledge stored in the person’s long-term memory plus the knowledge which
the person can glean from the physical environment; and any inferences
the person, based on his/her knowledge, is capable of making. Sperber and
Wilson (1995: 46), hereinafter S&W, argue that people communicate with
the intention of altering either their own cognitive environment or that
of their hearers. They propose a principle of relevance which they claim
speakers employ to enable them to communicate effectively.
Principle of Relevance
(a) The ostensive stimulus is relevant enough for it to be worth the
addressee’s effort to process it
(b) The ostensive stimulus is the most relevant one compatible with the
communicator’s abilities and preferences. (S&W 1995: 270)