A Pragmatic Analysis of Flouting Gricean Maxims in Televised Conversational Interaction

Abstract

Conversation is an essential part of our daily life. We can communicate our ideas, wills, feelings, emotions, and many other aspects of our lives through conversation. Conversation, in this sense, is a systematic and highly organized activity. People, in conversation, are often clear and operative in their talk. However, sometimes they are not so. This paper addresses the problem of non-observing Grice’s maxims in conversation, particularly the problem of flouting them. It aims to determine whether the four maxims are fully observed or maybe flouted in the televised conversations. The study tries to answer the question of what maxims are flouted in such conversation and whether this phenomenon is cross-cultural or not. The study adopts Grice’s (1975) Model, which explains the cooperative principle and its maxims. A qualitative approach has been followed in this study. The data of the study are extracts of a televised conversation between Bashar Assad, Syria's president, and the German journalist Todenhöfer, as well as between Scott and Biden, collected from the website. Finally, the study concludes that all the Grice’s maxims are flouted in the televised conversational interactions. However, this flouting of a given maxim depends on the nature of the journalist’s questions and the purpose of the talk. The results also show that flouting the maxims is a cross-cultural phenomenon. Accordingly, the question of the study has been answered. This would theoretically and practically add to the growing body of literature studying cross-cultural pragmatics.