"Try to make your contribution one that is true, .specifically:
(i) do not say what you believe to be false.
(ii) do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence"[18]
4.2 The maxim of Quantity:
"(i) Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange
(ii) Do not make your contribution more informative than is required"[19]
4.3 The maxim of Relation:
"Make your contribution relevant."[20]
4.4 The maxim of Manner:
"Be perspicuous and specifically:
(i) avoid obscurity of expression.
(ii) avoid ambiguity.
(iii) be brief
(iv) be orderly."[21]
From what mentioned above, we may know that the Cooperative Principle enables one participant in a conversation to communicate on the assumption that the other participant is being cooperative. These four maxims form a necessary part of the description of linguistic meaning in that they explain how it is that the speakers often “mean more than they say” in their communications.
"We may decide to withhold whatever information we possess:’ No comment!’ We may inadvertently infringe a maxim or we can secretly violate a maxim—e.g. A could maliciously and falsely tell B that Janet had walked in the opposite direction from the post office. Or – more importantly – we can make a blatant show of breaking one of the maxims (Grice terms this flouting a maxim), in order to lead the addressee to look for a covert, implied meaning."[22] . For examples,
(3) "At the time of recording, all the members of the cast were members of The BBC Players. ( Implicature: One or more of them are no longer members of The BBC Players.)"[23]
Generally speaking, "in Grice’s analysis, the speaker’s flouting of a maxim combined with the hearer’s assumption that the speaker has nor really abandoned the co-operative principle leads to an implicature"[24]. One thing that deserves our attention is that the four maxims, expressed in the imperative mood have sometimes been misunderstood as instructions for a speaker to behave in conversation.
5.Possible violating the Cooperative Principle in the use of euphemisms
In the light of the foregoing literature review and the theoretical bases, we know that euphemisms or euphemistic expressions are important and people often use them in communication. In reality, it can be found that these diplomats and statesmen etc. also use euphemisms or euphemistic expressions in the question-answer patterns. These statesmen make sharp things or unpleasant things sound pleasant etc. otherwise the use of euphemisms may even cause misunderstandings. So the next we will talk about communication with the theories of Cooperative Principle. For example, to be specific, diplomatic euphemisms of press conferences are mainly chosen as the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive word or expression for one that is harsh, indelicate or unpleasant to the other side. They are chosen from both the lexical approach and the rhetorical approach.
In communication like the question-answer patterns in press conferences, generally people or participants are required to observe the CP in order to make their conversation moves forward smoothly and successfully. But in reality, in order to meet a certain communicative need, especially in press conferences concerning diplomacy, actually people seldom speaks by always faithfully observing these four maxims of the CP. Therefore Grice himself also suggests 5 ways participants can deal with these maxims. First, speakers can straightforwardly follow the maxims, that is, they can speak the truth while giving just enough relevant information in a clear, unambiguous, succinct and orderly manner. Many people do just that most of time. Second, someone may violate a maxim, as you would do if you told a deliberate lie. A third thing that can happen is that a speaker can ‘opt out’ of a maxim, this seems to be an uncommon occurrence. The fourth possibility is the maxim clash; cases in which you would have to violate one maxim in order to fulfill another. And perhaps this is the most case of violation of the maxims in press conferences. The fifth and most intriguing way to deal with the maxims of conversation is to flout one of them. When a maxim is flouted, a speaker doesn't observe the maxim, but cannot be accused of violating it either, because the transgression is so flagrant that it is totally obvious that the speaker knows he or she is not observing it and realizes everyone else in the conversation knows it too.
The existence of the maxims of the CP makes the conversational implicature possible especially on the conditions like in press conferences etc.. Conversational implicature allows a speaker of any side in press conferences to convey meaning beyond what is literally expressed. Speakers in press conferences can often use euphemisms or euphemistic expressions to produce conversational implicature or more meaning that the hearers can also figure out its real intentions rather than the literal meaning by violating some certain maxims.
5.1. Violation of Quality Maxim
"Violation of Quality Maxim means by saying things that are not true or the fact and making irresponsible and insincere remarks by the speakers. It can produce some specifical content: humor, or disguise the intention such as Ministry of Defence for Ministry of War, life insurence for insurance when you are dead, freedom fighters for terrorists."[25] Frankly speaking, euphemisms have a tendency to violate Quality Maxim in order to express unpleasant things or ideas etc. in an indirect, roundabout and pleasant way. Therefore if hearers want to know the real intentions , they should infer the conversational implicature from the illocutionary meaning based on the special context. Moreover hyperbole and understatement also don't obey the Quality Maxim, for all these contribution are true . Let us look at some examples as follows:
(4) Q: Britain and France both put troops on standby alert … for possible movement into Kosovo. While … has the U.S. put any units on stand-by for a possible movement to Kosovo?
A: In view of the fact that … our forces remain at their current state of readiness. There … increase that state of alertness at this point. Obviously… on short stand-by… air operations, would… .
In the above Q-A patterns of the transcripts, we can see diplomatic euphemisms like “possible movement”, “at their current state of readiness” and “air operation” etc. are used in press conferences that violate the Quality Maxim. From the specific context we know that here “possible movement” mainly means “possible military attack”, “at their current state of readiness” refers to “at their current state of fighting ” and “air operation” refers to “air war” or “air fight” etc.. Still we can find more examples violating Quality Maxim of the CP in press conferences like “Ministry of Defense” for “Ministry of War”, “entering into Kosovo” or “go into Kosovo” for “invade Kosovo” or “invasion” and “information” for “military intelligence” and also “active defense” for “attack” etc.. By saying that, the authority can distort the facts to some extent and also reduce its bad impressions on the public. Hence the authority can present a false picture to the public and to beautify or disguise whatever they have done.
5.2 Violation of Quantity Maxim
"Violation of Quantity Maxim is by providing non-informative information or by either providing less or more information than actually needed. Strictly speaking, acronym and abbreviation, two main ways of the formation of euphemism, are the two main ways of violating the Quantity Maxim. For example, execute is for execute death penalty, I need to go is for I need to go to the lavatory, commfu for complete monumental military fuck up , S.O.S for son-of-a-bitch."[26] Some euphemisms or euphemistic expressions are created by contributing less information to violate the Quantity Maxim in order to make unpleasant, rude or offensive words sound more pleasant, polite and elegant. Let us have a look at some expressions used in press conferences violate the Quantity Maxim of the CP.
(5) Q: General Naumann said … military targets?
A: (Cohen): As we indicated the ACTORD was … Serbian forces were really posing a serious threat to several … the cold or from starving. That ACTORD was … innocent people. That ACTORD remains … General Naumann has referred to.
Let us have a look at another example:
(6) Q: General, … Could you … in the event of a conflict and … in terms of a liaison with the NGOs and …?
A: Well, their role is…civil-military affairs organizations, … in the CENTCOM theater …
In the above two question-answer patterns in press conferences we may say that these diplomatic euphemisms violate the Quantity Maxim because they failed to give us the right amount of information we needed or we may also say that they provided less information. By using these euphemisms the speakers like the diplomats and statesmen etc. can avoid mentioning these unpleasant terms or notions like central command and activation order etc. in press conferences.
Among the euphemisms used in press conferences, we may still find that some of the euphemisms can be regarded as a special case that violate both the Quality Maxim and the Quantity Maxim etc.. Hence in a broad sense we may say that euphemisms that violate the Quality Maxim can also be regarded as a special case that violate the Quantity Maxim because the two maxims are closely related. If a euphemism violates Quality Maxim, it also violates Quantity Maxim to a certain extent. For example, the euphemisms like “possible movement” for “possible military attack” or “possible war”; “brought the world together” mainly refers to those countries led by the USA. Hence from this point of view we may that euphemisms like “possible movement”, “brought the world together” etc. not only violate the Quality Maxim but also violate the Quantity Maxim because to a certain extent they distort the facts and provide less information than people actually need.
5.3 Euphemisms and the Relation Maxim
As we mentioned before that the Maxim of Relation refers to “Be relevant” and violation of Relation Maxim means that the utterance of a speaker is irrelevant to the conversation or the specific context for some reasons or some purposes. Sometimes we may find English euphemisms are to use irrelevant utterances on the surface to express something that the speakers want to say and cannot say. In fact the implied meaning of the utterances is relevant partially because the formation of English euphemisms abides these formative principles like pleasant-sound principle etc.. For example,
(7) "I approached her very hesitatly.
"Want to come and play?"
Piquette looked at me with a sudduen flash of scorn.
"I ain't a kid," she said.
Wounded, I stamped angrily away..."[27]
Here, "I ain't a kid" seems no relationto this conversation. But there implicature meaning is only kids play-- I ain't kid-- I won't play with you. So, it is indirect refuse of communicating. In English “to pass away” is used in a euphemistic sense for “to die” now. The denotation of “to pass away” is “to go away for a time”; while “to die” means “to go away forever”. “To die” is euphemized as “to go away” by violating the Relation Maxim on the surface, in fact, both the two phrases have the relevant meaning to “to go away”. Their difference lies only in the time, one is for a period of time, the other is forever. So when the speaker use “to pass away” to replace “to die”, the hearers may infer the conversational implicature of “to die” from the relevant meaning “to go away”. So with time goes on, it is now almost used as a fixed usage for “to die” in almost all the circumstances.
5.4 Violation of Manner Maxim
Violation of Manner Maxim means giving obscure and ambiguous information etc.. Sometimes under the communicative circumstances, the speaker, in order to avoid mentioning unpleasant and embarrassed things in a direct way, say something obscurely and ambiguously, then the hearers should carefully infer the conversational implicature of the speaker and what is their real intentions and meaning according to the specific context. So we may find many euphemisms tend to violate the Maxim of Manner so as to achieve the mild, agreeable, roundabout and pleasant-sound effects.
We can also take the following as examples to illustrate how euphemisms violate the Manner Maxim. "A educator cannot say a student is lazy, idle, stupid, or clever. Instead of them is educationally and socially disadvantaged groups, underachieved, those on the lower end of the ability-scale, high verbal- ability subjects, disadvantaged home enviornments, underprivileged child."[28] Obviously, these words violates Manner Maxim o f being brief.
Another example, "Perhaps you had better get your affairs in order." This is a notion of death from the doctor. it's wordy but not unnecessary. one-way-ticket is for die. It reflect one's experience and cognition.
6.Conclusion
As we stated earlier, euphemism is one of the important and universal linguistic phenomena. Due to the special characteristics like substitution, indirectness etc. it is becoming one of the main communicative approaches This thesis has attempted to study the euphemistic expressions used in the question-answer patterns from the perspective of pragmatics.
The article is an overview of the functions and communicative functions of euphemism, and from the pragmatic analysis of the materials, it can be seen clearly that the use of euphemisms basically violate the Quality Maxim, the Quantity Maxim, and the Manner Maxim of the Cooperative Principle and the frequency of violating the Quality Maxim is the highest among the three ones. That is to say, the euphemisms used in the question-answer patterns generally do not violate the Relation Maxim of the Cooperative Principle.
There is an old saying in English: Necessity is the mother of invention. The creation of euphemisms also cannot depart from people’s needs of them. People need euphemisms for social communication, to euphemize the taboo, to show their politeness and to disguise. As a sociolinguistic phenomenon, the formation of euphemisms is the result of the combination of various social psychological factors and pragmatic factors.
Studies on euphemisms from a pragmatic perspective reveal how euphemisms flout the Cooperative Principle so as to obey the Politeness Principle in communication and how factors from their sociocultural and communicational context influence their application in communication. Any change of one or more factors of a communication event, will have an effect on our decision of whether to use euphemisms. The expressive euphemisms play a non-fungible role in communication. It is euphemism that makes language more powerful, magical and pleasant. People’s speech does reflect their background, their activities, and the values they hold, therefore, we can learn much about the English people by looking at their use of euphemisms. The studies on English euphemisms can not only help to develop intercultural communicative competence, but also enlighten English language learning and teaching. Therefore, multidisciplinary, multi-angle, and multi-level studies on euphemisms are necessary for English learners to understand the English history and society and communicate with native English speakers better. There are still a lot in this field waiting to be explored, and euphemisms deserve more attention and comprehensive studies.
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浅谈英语委婉语的分类、构成方式及社会功能
反语的幽默属性和语用功能