Theoretical Framework Essay

375 Words2 Pages
Theoretical Framework: Political discourse is closely related to “Cooperative Principle”. According to Grice’s conversational implicature theory, both the speaker and the hearer should cooperate in conversation to express each other’s intention. As a result, both the speaker and the hearer should obey the “Cooperative Principle”, and it includes four parts: the maxim of quantity, the maxim of quality, the maxim of relation and the maxim of manner. In detail, the four maxims of the Cooperative Principle are: 1) The maxim of quantity – we should not give more or less information than it is required; 2) The maxim of quality – we should not say things with no evidence, not say what we believe to be false; 3) The maxim of relation – the information should be relevant to the topic; 4) The maxim of manner – the information should be explicit: (i) clear, (ii) not ambiguous, (iii) brief, (iv) orderly. Grice even points out that if the response violates the cooperation, this violation is actually another way to observe the cooperation. That is to say, the speaker might run counter to the maxims of the CP, but the hearer must try to make out the underlying cooperation, with the belief that the speaker does follow the CP. The meaning of the underlying cooperation is the conversational implicature. As political discourse is usually concerned about great matters such as economy, military and etc, the speaker may violate one or even some maxims of the Cooperative Principle so as to create a meaning of the underlying cooperation—conversational implicature. Conclusion: To a great extent, the political discourse is in connection with the relationship between countries, and what the speaker said represents his or her country. Consequently, the discourse should be appropriate and right, and it absolutely distinguishes from daily communication. In the political
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