Dear Marta,
Verbal humor often involves violation of Grice's maxims. Attardo (1994),
for example, gives the following conversational jokes, each of which
violates one of the Maxims:
a. Quality
"Why did the Vice-President fly to Panama?"
"Because the fighting is over."
b. Quantity
"Excuse me, do you know what time it is?"
"Yes."
c. Relation
"How many surrealists does it take to screw in a light bulb?"
"Fish!"
d. Manner
"Do you believe in clubs for young people?"
"Only when kindness fails."
Maxims may also be violated in canned jokes, which possess a narrative
structure (i.e., the kind of joke you usually find in joke books, or which
people usually preface with "Did you hear the one about ...?") As Attardo
points out, the claim that the teller of a joke violates Grice's Maxims
implies that a narrative joke text constitutes an example of
non-cooperative behavior. If such texts violate the Maxims, one would
expect them to become non-cooperative and to lose meaningfulness.
Nevertheless, jokes are usually understood and are not perceived as lies or
as ill-formed or cryptic texts. Raskin (1985) solves the paradox by
proposing a modified set of Grice's Maxims to account for what he calls
non-bona-fide communication:
Raskin's Non-bona-fide Maxims
Quantity: Give exactly as much information as is necessary for the joke
Quality: Say only what is compatible with the world of the joke
Relation: Say only what is relevant to the joke
Manner: Tell the joke efficiently
The operation of the non-bona-fide Maxims insures that the listener does
not expect the joke-teller to be truthful or to convey any relevant
information. Rather, he or she recognizes that the intention of the speaker
is to elicit a humorous response.
So it seems that in the domain of humor, one finds examples of Gricean
maxim violations. There is even reason to believe that verbal humor merits
its own special set of maxims, at least with respect to narrative/canned
jokes.
I have an online paper on the subject at the following URL:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/t/g/tgb114/linguistics/jokes/jokes.htm
Best,
Travis Bradley
At 04:42 PM 2/9/99 +0100, Marta Carretero wrote:
> Dear funknetters,
>
> I would be grateful if some of you gave me some references on
>genres/text types/other cases in which the Gricean Cooperative Principle
>and Maxims are not followed or
>expected to be followed to a large extent (for example: trials, political
>interviews, etc.) I would especially like works which use authentic spoken
>or written English material, so as to show examples to my students of
>Pragmatics.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Marta.
>
>
>Marta Carretero
>Departamento de Filologia Inglesa
>Facultad de Filologia - Edificio A
>Universidad Complutense
>28040 - Madrid. Spain. Fax: (341)394-54-78
>
>