FOUR PRINCIPLES OF COOPERATIVE DISCOURSE


             Grice (1975) wrote that effective human discourse must be cooperative (p. 46). He called it the Cooperative Principle. This principle informs good communication. Grice described cooperative discourse by breaking it down into four constitutive factors: “Quality, Quantity, Relation, and Manner” (Ibid).
             Hesse (1999) succinctly defined these four features of collaborative discourse as follows:
Quality—be truthful, and have evidence for what you say.
Quantity—be succinct, and yet complete.
Relation—be relevant to the topic at hand.
Manner—be clear and orderly. (p. 404).
             Grice (1975) called Quality a “supermaxim” whose emphasis upon truth includes by implicature to never promote a known falsity. He also called "perspicacity" a "supermaxim" of cooperative communication. By which he meant on the positive side that cooperative communication involves joining what is said with what is meant or what one intends to say in ways that avoid confusion.

                Can you imagine how much more efficient our trials and hearings would be if people were able to adhere to Grice’s four maxims of collaborative discourse?

References:

Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. L. Moran (Eds.), Syntax and semantics; Vol. 3. Speech acts, (pp. 41-58). New York: Academic Press.

Hesse, E. (1999). The adult attachment interview: Historical and current perspectives. In J. Cassidy & P. R. Shaver, Handbook of attachment: Theory, research and clinical applications, (pp. 395-433). New York. The Guilford Press.

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