Maxim of manner

The maxim of manner is one of the Gricean conversational maxims which constitute the Cooperative Principle. It makes the following requirements:

• ‘Be perspicuous’
  • Avoid obscurity of expression.
  • Avoid ambiguity.
  • Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
  • Be orderly.

The maxim of manner thus relates "not [...] to what is said but, rather, to HOW what is said to be said [...]" (Grice 1975: 46).

An elaboration of the Gricean maxim of manner was proposed by Leech (1983: 100), who distinguishes two kinds of clarity: "One kind consists in making unambiguous use of syntax and phonology of the language in order to construct a clear text. Another type [...] consists in framing a clear message, ie a message which is perspicuous or intelligible in the sense of conveying the intended illocutionary goal to the addressee."

Examples

• A: I hear you went to the opera last night; how was the lead singer?
• B: The singer produced a series of sounds corresponding closely to the score of an aria from 'Rigoletto'. (Levinson 1983: ***)

B flouts the maxim of manner, as the sentence is unnecessarily prolix.

See also

• M-Principle

Link

Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics

References

• Atlas, J. and S. Levinson (1981) It-clefts, informativeness, and logical form, In: P. Cole ed., Radical Pragmatics, 1-61, New York: Academic Press
• Horn, Lawrence. (1984) Toward a new taxonomy for pragmatic inference: Q-based and R-based implicature, In: D. Schiffrin ed., Meaning, Form and Use in Context (GURT '84), 11-42, Washington: Georgetown University Press.
• Levinson, S. 2000. Presumptive Meanings: The Theory of Generalized Conversational Implicature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Sperber, D. and D. Wilson (1986) Relevance: Communication and Cognition, Oxford: Blackwell.

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