Grice’s Flouting the Maxims

The flouting of the maxims is different from the violation of the maxims because it occurs when
the hearer really does not understand with the violated utterances, while the flouting of maxims
occurs when the speaker intentionally stops to use the maxims to flatter/praise the hearer to
deduce/assume the meaning implied.

The infringement of maxims which involves exploitation, that is, a procedure by which
a maxim is flouted for the purpose of getting a conversational implicature, is usually carried out
by means of indirect, contradictory utterances, or figure of speech such as irony, metaphor,
overstatement, understatement, tautology/redundancy, and hyperbole. Grundy (2000) states that
whenever a maxim is flouted there must be an implicature (the action of implying a meaning
beyond the literal sense of what is explicitly stated, for example saying the frame is nice and
implying I don't like the picture in it.) to save the utterance from simply appearing to be a faulty
contribution to a conversation.  

Flouting the Maxim of Quantity: Flouting the maxim of quantity and its implicature occur

when the speaker or the writer conveys messages that are not as informative as they are required
or the information is too much and unnecessary. In the example 1 below, B flouts the maxim of
quantity, since he gives too much information to A, while too much information can distract the
listener. However, it is not very difficult to recover the implicature that B wants to show to A
that he is a kind of "on time" person.

Example 1:

A: What time is it?

B: It's two o'clock, in fact it's four past two, and now it's Sunday.

Example 2:

Two elderly gentlemen were talking. One says, "Boy, this new hearing aid I got works great! I
can hear everything now." The other one says, "That's wonderful! What kind is it?" "It's a quarter
past two."

The utterance “I can hear everything now” flouts maxim of quantity because the utterance is
more informative than is required.

Flouting the Maxim of Quality: Flouting the maxim of quality and its implicature occur when
the speaker or the writer conveys messages that are untrue or lack adequate evidence. In the
following example 1, B flouts the maxim of quality since he gives insincere answer for A's
question. The implicature of this flouting maxim would be that B doesn't know exactly about the
capital city of Indonesia.

Example 1:

A: What is the capital city of Indonesia?

B: I believe it's Bogor, or maybe Jakarta, Indonesia has wide territory. 
Example 2:

A man walking down the street meets a friend who has a lobster tucked under his arm. "Are you
taking that lobster home to dinner?" he asks. "No," says friend, "he's had his dinner and now I'm
taking him to the pictures".

The utterance above flouts maxim of quality because the friend’s answer to the man’s question,
to the pictures, uses overstatement strategy. So, the meaning used in that utterance contains
abnormal meaning according to the most of people’s view that the friend wants to make a date
with the lobster in the movie.

Flouting the Maxim of Relevance: Flouting the maxim of relevance and its implicature arise
when the speaker deviates from the particular topic being asked and discussed. In the example 1
below, the answer of the son is not answering the mother’s question. The son tries to direct his
mother’s concern away from the question which he does not like. 

Example 1:

Mom: Have you done your homework?

Son: My bicycle is broken mom. 

Example 2:

Husband: There’s somebody at the door.

Wife: I’m in the bath.

Here, the wife expects her husband that her present location is relevant to his comment that there
is someone at the door, and that she cannot go and see who it is because she is in the bath.

Flouting the Maxim of Manner: Flouting the maxim of manner and its implicature occur when
the utterances are not brief, ambiguous, and obscure. Advertisements often flout the maxim of
manner. The statement in example 1 flouts maxim of manner because it is obscure. The
utterances trigger an inference process in which the addressee looks for the likeliest that is
relevant in the context that obtain – that the taste is good for people who favor Coca cola and bad
for those who dislike it. 

Example 1:

It’s the taste.

Example 2:

(Spoken while Nicholas and Anna’s son (Mike) is standing nearby)

Nicholas: What are your plans for this afternoon?

Anna: I am going to take the L-I-T-T-L-E B-O-Y (their son Mike) to a P-A-R-K.

The utterance above flouts maxim of manner as Anna does not utter the words Mike and park
around Mike. She does so because Mike will get too excited if he hears them.