Cooperative Principle

Grice (1975) believes that when people get engaged in a conversation, they follow the
Cooperative Principle (CP) in order to make a successful conservation.

Grice’s cooperative principle stated: “Make your conversational contribution such as is required,
at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which
you are engaged” (Grice,1975, p. 45).

Grice's Maxims

A. Maxims of Quantity

According to this maxim, the speaker must make his/her contribution as informative as is
required for the current purposes of the exchange, and doesn't make his/her contribution more
informative than required.

B. Maxims of Quality

According to this maxim, the speaker should not say what he or she believes to be false or say
anything that lacks adequate evidence.

C. Maxim of Relation

The speaker's speech must be relevant.

D. Maxims of Manner

This maxim requires that the speaker take these points into consideration.

• Avoid obscurity of expression.

• Avoid ambiguity.

• be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).

• be orderly.
We are going to look at the utterances in order to lookout whether there is violation or flouting
and of which maxims. In most utterances the maxims are overlapping.

1) Interviewer: Is it true that you have a de Mer which is chauffeur- driven that takes you about
or is this no longer the case?

David Starkey: It is alas no longer the case. It’s turned into a pumpkin… and my driver.. I think
is not the point of turning into a frog footman.

Analysis

In this utterance violation of quantity maxim takes place as the interviewee makes unnecessary
details. He makes the expressions obscure as well, which become the cause of violation of
manner maxim.

2) Interviewer: Now you have a reputation among some perhaps as the rudest man in Britain. Is
this a preposterous and unfair?

David Starkey: I think it is preposterous and unfair but on the other hand it is extremely valuable.
I always say it was worth at least 1000,000 a year.

Analysis

In this utterance the quantity maxim violates as the answer contains an unrequired information.
Moreover, relation maxim also flouts as answer is not relevant to the question as is seen by the
information provided later.

3) Interviewer: Do you ever feel remorse do you ever think you overstep the light?

David Starkey: Yes often when I did the moral maze. You’d waken up in the middle of the night
and think my god did I really say that and then normally the following morning you’ll be rung by
someone else offering you more money at which point repentance faded. Remember I was
directed by one of your fellow BBC producers to be as outrageous as possible the program was
rather nicely described as moral tag wrestling.

Analysis

It is clearly illustrated from this utterance that quantity maxim violates here as it includes too
much extended details by quoting a whole incident about the feeling of repentance. It is also
clear that by quoting an incident, he does not stick to the point by saying “Remember I was
directed by one of your fellow BBC producers……”

4) Interviewer: Oh well what do you think is the most important moral issue of our time?

David Starkey: Where the freedom is compatible with the modern society and modern
economics.

Analysis

In this utterance relation maxim violates as the answer does not relevant to the question at all.

5) Interviewer: How do you think the monarchy stands in 2010?

David Starkey: Less bad than most of the other institutions public life less bad than the church
less bad than the parliament less better than the law the only one of our institutions that survives
and that in a rather artificial is the army even the neighbors laughed at.

Analysis

David Starkey intentionally violates the manner maxim as he made his expressions obscure and
ambiguous by repeating “Less bad than…” He is irrelevant in a way that he does not tell about
monarchy system but wanders around other topics.

6) Interviewer: When did you develop your interest in monarchy as a historian?

David Starkey: Oh purely out of reaction when I was an undergraduate at Cambridge and I was
told the only one thing that mattered was the history of trade unions of Soviet Union an awful
snotty-nosed people like the group in society that I came from immediately I said aristocracy
immediately I said monarchy what was wonderful. I was pitied by my fellow students you know
you’ll never make a living they said and there all are holding chairs in the social history at the
export technique of Snodgrass in the days when I have the Dame that I would drive pass slowly
and way back yes sir.

Analysis

In this utterance David Starkey make his contribution more informative than is required by
saying that “I was pitied by my fellow students…” so he violates quantity maxim. David Starkey
also violates the relation maxim by saying “and I was told the only one thing that mattered was
the history of trade unions of Soviet Union…” because the answer is not relevant to the topic
given.in this utterance. There is also the violation of manner maxim because the utterance is
ambiguous and gives unclear expressions.

7) Interviewer: What is your biggest passion outside the work and outside the history we’ll come
back to history in a minute?

David Starkey: I love houses. I have too many of them I like I like space I like the way in which
you can shape the space to produce yourself as I do to fit yourself I am a kind of architect
monkey. I also love the privacy that houses bring. I live quite a lot in the public eye but I’ve
always tried to keep a genuine private space that’s a house.

Analysis

In the above discussion, it is supposed that the interviewee will answer only about his passion
but he intentionally flouts the quantity maxim by adding more information by saying about the
houses that “…I have too many of them…” He also violates the quality maxim by saying that “I
am a kind of architect monkey” which, actually, he is not because he is a historian and a human,
not a monkey.

8) Interviewer: your real area of expertise as a historian is Tudors the Tudor period, how come?

David Starkey: Accident, like everything important in my life. I had a teacher at school who gave
me the run of his library and that was his area of interest. I went to Cambridge and there were
two great figures that was Geoffrey Elton and there was Jack Plumb. Plumb showed no interest
in me was too keen in Sharma so I was left with Elton which was the tutors. You know an awful
lot about Henry the eighth which of his wives interested you the most. I used to say Anne
Boleyn. I have not decided Katherine Howard she has such a wonderful record of teenage sex
and she demonstrated you know that we really did it before 1966.

Analysis

From the very first sentence, David Starkey flouts the relation maxim as he start talking about a
completely different thing. Further, he tells about his past and other unnecessary incidents so he
flouts quantity maxim. Moreover, the order of telling the incident is not right and not at all brief
as sometime he talks about his teacher, fellows, wife of Henry … so he violates the manner
maxim.

9) Interviewer: And Berlin her reputation has been enhanced by David Starkey as is true?

David Starkey: Yes and many others and what I tried to do was to say you know she wasn’t just
a sexpot that her the essential the essential of her power like Cleopatra you famous phrase you
know the length of the nose it was her ability to seduce Henry but she was intelligent she was
interesting in maters religious and she was above all Henry’s backbone it was she who driven.

Analysis

He is flouting the quantity maxim because there is no need to make his conversational
contribution more informative than is required. He is also flouting manner maxim as he makes
things ambiguous by saying at one side “it was her ability to seduce Henry” and at another side
“she was interesting in maters religious”.

10) Interviewer: Which do you think is the most significant century in British history?

David Starkey: Oh the sixteenth I would say that I won’t.. I… but I… could also support it
before the sixteenth century. We are another European Catholic country after it were odd ball
protestant nation and by the way the channel has become the widest strip of water in the world.

Analysis

In this conversational part David Starkey again flouts quantity maxim.

11) Interviewer: Do you think that humanity is progressing or regressing?

David Starkey: I think it’s doing a little bit of both. There are many areas. Medicine is the most
obvious technology is another where clearly were soaring ahead other areas like language like
music like social responsibilities like politics we’re arguably regressing.

Analysis

“There are many areas…” by saying that he is flouting quantity maxim as he is providing more
information than is required as he is only asked about prosperity or degeneration of humanity but
the answer given to interviewer in about approximately all the field of human activity.
12) Interviewer: Is there a philosopher whom you most admire?

David Starkey: No. mostly I think philosophers are rather tiresome people who makes very
simple things very complicated and that on.

Analysis

In this conversational part he providing more information than is required by adding “mostly I
think philosophers…..” hence the quantity maxim.

Conclusion

From the above analysis we get to see that the interviewee is explaining, clarifying, adding
points, and providing evidence, which leads to abiding the maxims of quantity, quality and
manner and relation, in order to express efficiently his thoughts and ideas regarding political and
historical issues in a humorous, metaphorical and satirical way and also by quoting incidents.
References

Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and Conversation. In Martinich, A.P. (ed). Philosophy of

Language.165-175.New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Yule, George (2006). The Study of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.