Non-cooperation in communication : A reassessment of...

Journal of Pragmatics 17 (1992) 117-154

North-Holland

117

Non-cooperation in communication : A reassessment of Gricean pragmatics

Srikant K. Sarangi and Stefaan Slembrouck*

Received May 1990: revised version September 1991

Our main claim in this paper is that, although Grice’s theory is apparently about conversation, it

has a potential to account for and explain discourse in institutional contexts. However, in order to

achieve this, due attention has to be paid to factors of a societal kind. For us, this should mean

examining the correlations between participants’ socioeconomic interests, their social identities,

the social and situational powers they (do not) possess, their expectations about activities, etc. on

the one hand, and principled forms of language use, on the other. We proceed as follows: first, we outline how the Cooperative Principle has been defined by Grice himself. Next we draw attention

to how his theory has been received within various strands of linguistic enquiry. On the basis of

our analysis of instances of institutional discourse (both spoken and written), we then formulate a

number of proposals to meet some of the apparent shortcomings in the original Gricean scheme. These proposals are contained within an appeal for a social pragmatics which goes beyond

meaning on a speaker-hearer basis and the immediate discourse situation.

1. Introduction

Over the past few decades Grice’s theory has dominated the debate on language use in various disciplines (including linguistics), although there have been few attempts to relate Grice’s framework to an analysis of information exchange in actual discourse contexts. Our point of departure here is to combine the theoretical concerns of Gricean pragmatics with discourse analy- tical approaches on language use in the institutional context. First, however, let us look at how the Cooperative Principle has been defined by Grice himself and then draw attention to how his theory has been received within various strands of linguistic enquiry.

* We are indebted to Norman Fairclough, Geoff Leech, Mick Short and Jenny Thomas for

commenting on an earlier version of this paper, which appeared as Lancaster Papers in Linguistics No. 58 (1988). We would also like to thank Roger Hewitt and Andrew Littlejohn for stimulating discussions on the topic. We are grateful to Karin and Usha for their ‘cooperation’.

Correspondence addresses: SK. Sarangi, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, 10 Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore 0511; S. Slembrouck, Seminarie voor Algemene Taalkunde, Universiteit Gent, Rozier 44, B-9000 Gent, Belgium.

0378-2166/92/$05.00 0 1992 - Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. All rights reserved

118 S. K. Sarangi. S. Slmdwouck ! Non-cooperarion in communication

2. Grice’s notion of cooperation in communication

Grice’s original article ‘Logic and conversation’, as he claimed, aims at representing and accounting for ‘a certain subclass of nonconventional implicatures’ (also known as ‘conversational implicatures’) as ‘essentially connected with certain general features of discourse’. These ‘general features’ he embod- ied in what has become known as the Cooperative Principle. It is based on the assumption that

“our talk exchanges do not normally consist of a succession of disconnected remarks, and would

not be rational if they did. They are characteristically, to some degree at least, cooperative efforts;

and each participant recognizes in them, to some extent. a common purpose or set of common

purposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction.” (1975: 45)

On the basis of these observations, Grice formulates a rough general principle which participants in communication are expected to observe:

“Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the

accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. One might label this the COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE." (1975:45)’

This Cooperative Principle (hereafter standardly abbreviated as CP) entails that language users in interactions obey four maxims (with further sub maxims totalling nine in all). These maxims, known in the trade as ‘quality’, ‘quantity’, ‘relation’ and ‘manner’, are named after Kant’s categories of reason. The explanatory theory which Grice offers for how people arrive at conversational implicatures, broadly speaking, is formulated as the language users’ resolving of apparent breaches of one or more of the maxims with the assumption that the interlocutors do not ‘opt out’ of the CP. To give one of Grice’s (1975 : 52) own examples: in a reference letter for a former student, Professor A writes: “Dear Sir, Mr. X’s command of English is excellent, and his attendance at tutorials has been regular. Yours etc.“. On the basis of the

mutually shared assumptions that, firstly, A is being cooperative because he writes the letter (he does not ‘opt out’ of the CP); secondly, it cannot be through ignorance that no more information is provided, and, finally, that more information is required in a reference letter (A flouts the quantity maxim), A implicates and his recipient infers as implicated that A does not wish to recommend Mr. X for the job.

As Grice himself argued, such a theory of conversational implicature can only have validity if talkers in general actually proceed in the fashion the CP and its attendant maxims prescribe:

1 Unless indicated otherwise. emphases and parentheses in quotations are as in the original

S. K. Sarangi, S. Slembrouck / Non-cooperation in communication 119

“A dull, but, no doubt at a certain level, adequate answer is that it is just a well-recognized

empirical fact that people DO behave in these ways; they have learned to do so in childhood and

not lost the habit of doing so; and, indeed, it would involve a great deal of effort to make a radical departure from the habit. It is much easier, for example, to tell the truth than to invent

lies.” (1975: 48)

Taking this argument further, Grice also expressed the desire to have a rational basis for this ‘standard type of conversational practice’:

“I would like to be able to think of the standard type of conversational practice not merely as

something that all or most do IN FACT follow but as something that it is REASONABLE for us to follow, that we SHOULD NOT abandon.” (1975: 48)

It appears that Grice’s theory is about conversation although it clearly has traits of a more general theory of information exchange in communication. The uncertainty surrounding this lies not only in Grice’s own work and that of some of his followers, but also in the overall confusion that exists around the terms ‘conversation’Z and ‘cooperation’.

Obviously, it should be borne in mind that Grice’s original writing appeared at a time when sociolinguistics was still in a very embryonic stage and when there was no talk as yet of conversation analysis. Moreover, Grice’s own use of the term ‘conversational’ has to be set against the background of the debate between the ‘natural language school’ (which he belongs to) and the ‘formalist school’ in logic and philosophy. However, up to the present day, there are still problems both over targeting the scope of Grice’s theory and the delineation of what speech events count as conversation. Wilson (1987: 93) observes that although analysts tend to agree intuitively on a definition of informal conversation as a very specific speech event, “there has been a tendency simply to equate conversations with everyday talk”. Grice and many of his followers have in fact done exactly that. Others have let the ambiguity over terms and concepts reign freely, very often using conversation as a very wide denominator of possible speech events and activities (e.g. Wardhaugh 1986).

A similar confusion pertains to the notion of ‘cooperation’. Pavlidou (1991: 12) proposes a distinction between ‘substantial cooperation’ and ‘formal cooperation’, the former referring to the sharing of goals among communication partners “that go beyond maxima1 exchange of information”, and the latter “being simply cooperation in the Gricean tradition, i.e. acting according to the conversational maxims (or against them)“. Two interpretations of Grice’s use of the term ‘cooperation’ appear to be possible. According to

z Although there is an urgent need to define and clearly demarcate the concept of ‘informal conversation’, such an undertaking obviously falls outside the scope of this paper. However, it is worth drawing attention here to attempts already made by Halliday et al. (1985) Myllyniemi (1986) and Wilson (1987).

120 S. K. Sarangi, S. Slembrouck 1 Non-cooperation in communicarion

Thomas (1986) there is the ‘social goal sharing’-interpretation, on the one hand, and the arguably vacuous notion of ‘linguistic cooperation’, in the more narrow sense of observing the conventions of the ‘language game’, on the other.

What scope of application should therefore be assigned to Grice’s theory?

Brown and Levinson (1987) for instance, assign it the status of a general theory of communication (see section 3.2). Our concern in this paper will be to examine Grice’s proposals against a number of concrete instances of language, which, quite deliberately, we have drawn from institutional, professional discourse. It can be noted here that Grice himself pointed out that his scheme needed to be generalized if it were to account successfully for the kind of language use which primarily serves to influence and direct the actions of others. Quite interestingly, his own example of the reference letter, apart from being an instance where the goal is to direct and influence others, is also an instance of institutional discourse.

Apart from the problem of scoping Grice’s theory, there is the additional

issue of how his theory of cooperation and conversational implicature has been received within pragmatics and discourse analysis. In the immediately following section, we identify four receptive positions and discuss each one of these in turn. It may, however, be useful to note here that our discussion does not offer a definitive critique of the strengths and weaknesses of the presented positions. Instead, it is intended to serve as a background to the other sections in this paper.

3. How cooperative have linguists been in cooperating with Grice?

3.1. “It is REASONABLE for us to follow, . . we SHOULD NOT ABANDON (Grice

1975: 48) ~ The ethical issue

The ethical stance, which Grice postulates as a reality, has inspired authors like Allwood (1976) to recast the idea of human cooperation as entailing ‘human benevolence’. Interactants are seen as ‘normal rational agents’ to the extent that

“[I] they are voluntarily thriving to achieve some purpose,

[2] they are ethically and cognitively considering each other in trying to achieve this purpose, [3) they trust each other to act according to (IH2), unless they give each other explicit notice that

they are not.” (Allwood 1976: S-3)

Interestingly, however, as Allwood points out, unlike Grice, his principles which underlie ‘ideal cooperation’ are not intended to describe any actual behaviour. Rather they are thought of as an ‘explication of an ideal normative


communication’ (1976: 143). This is precisely what Mey (1987) refers to as the mythical vacuous ideology of cooperation (see section 3.4).

3.2. “People DO behave in these ways” and “‘most do IN FACT follow” (Grice 197.5: 48) - CP as an explanatory device

A second receptive trend looks at the CP as presumptive in actual communication, but paradoxically perhaps, it is stripped of its societal basis. Conse- quently, the CP has been invested with normalcy, and further moulded into a value-free scientific basis for explaining how people arrive at meaning. Let us

consider this in more detail.

3.2.1. The denial of a social basis Undoubtedly, when Grice formulated the CP, the aim to develop a theory of conversational implicature was central to his undertaking. This may have contributed to Leech and Thomas’ (1988) rejection of the idea that Grice’s theory is built on a notion of ‘human benevolence’:

1‘ many commentators have assumed that Grice’s Cooperative Principle is built on some a priori

notion of human benevolence and cooperativeness: that Grice is therefore making some kind of

ethical claim about human behaviour But nothing is further from the truth. The CP is simply a

device to explain how people arrive at meanings.” (1988: 8)

Referring to Levinson (1979) and Martinich (1984), they further add that in the context of real life communication, one or more of the Gricean maxims may apply to varying degrees, or may even be suspended.

While denying the ‘ethical claim’ and dismissing the social goal-sharing interpretation of the CP, Leech and Thomas (1988), in their review of the ‘state of the art of pragmatics’, do not raise the question of a rationale for why it would be the case that people act in accordance with the CP. This brings us to Brown and Levinson (1987), who, in their discussion of the relationship between the factors of information exchange and politeness, argue that

.I Grice’s CP (however it is finally conceptualized) is of quite a different status from that of

politeness principles. The CP defines an ‘unmarked’ or socially neutral (indeed asocial) presumptive framework for communication; the essential assumption is ‘no deviation from rational

efficiency without a reason’.” (1987: 5)

In particular, the attributes ‘asocial’, ‘unmarked’ and ‘socially neutral’ strikingly make the point. Brown and Levinson do not argue that language use does not have a social basis. But, according to them, that social basis does not apply to the CP as such; it applies only where there would be an aberration of ‘cooperativeness’. For instance, they go on to argue that politeness is one social ‘principled reason for deviation’.

122 S. K. Saran@. S. Slembrouck 1 Non-cooperation in communication

Brown and Levinson’s observation that politeness is a deviation from the CP is quite different from Leech’s (1983) formulation of a Politeness Principle (hereafter standardly abbreviated as PP) as a necessary complement to the CP, and, on a par with it3 Leech argues that the CP is in a weak position, if it cannot explain why, in certain situations (e.g. white lies), people say untruths, while nevertheless being extremely concerned with keeping the possibility to cooperate linguistically (and otherwise). In defining the PP, he suggests :

“The CP enables one participant to communicate on the assumption that the other participant is

cooperative. In this the CP has the function of regulating what we say so that it contributes to some assumed illocutionary or discoursal goal(s). It could be argued that the PP has a higher

regulative function role than this: to maintain the social equilibrium and the friendly relations

which enable us to assume that our interlocutors are being cooperative in the first place.” (1983 : 82)

For Leech, the CP does not enjoy absolute presumptiveness by its own merits. Its presumptive character is subject to other conditions: human actants invest a lot in maintaining friendly social relations, and, this is a necessary require- ment to guarantee the presumptiveness of the CP. To quote him again:

“To put matters at their most basic: unless you are polite to your neighbour, the channel of

communication between you will break down, and you will no longer be able to borrow his mower.” (1983: 82)

The PP therefore functions to guarantee that interactants will not opt out. So, unlike Brown and Levinson (1987) Leech (1983) does assume that the CP’s presumptiveness is subject to particular social conditions, but, the question why it is that people act in accordance with the CP is not addressed as such. It is taken for granted that the CP will apply in interactions, and, language users will assume it to apply, as long as one is polite.

Summarizing at this stage, we can therefore reasonably conclude that within this second receptive trend, despite subtle differences between various authors, the CP has become a value-free framework for explaining how language users organize their linguistic behaviour in interaction and how they arrive at implicated meanings. Grice himself, however, maintains that there is a social basis for language users’ cooperative behaviour (cf. ‘we have learned to do so in childhood, and, we have not lost the habit of doing so’). But his

3 In doing so, Leech in fact took up what Grice himself suggested in his William James Lectures, viz. “There are, of course, all sorts of other maxims (aesthetic, social or moral in character), such

as ‘Be polite’, that are also normally observed by participants in talk exchanges, and these may also generate nonconventional implicatures” (1975: 47). Brown and Levinson (1987: 5) object to

the PP, on the grounds that Leech endows it with the same sort of presumptiveness as the CP. Their major argument is that politeness needs to be communicated. Hence, its absence, when occurring, must be taken as an absence of the politeness attitude.

SK. Sarangi. S. Slembrouck / Non-cooperation in communication 123

formulation of that basis is a very crude one. This, in our view, may have contributed to the ‘desocializing’ trend among his followers.4 For instance, Grice’s contention that ‘most of us do follow the CP’ makes the value of cooperation one that is assumed to cut across social barriers and divisions, across social purpose and interest. It is seen as a value, which, though not always upheld, is thought of as usually being observed by everyone interacting anywhere for any particular purpose, as long as one stays within what is ‘normal’.

3.2.2. The investment of normalcy The investment of normalcy is a second major characteristic which ties together Brown and Levinson (1987) and Leech (1983). For both, the CP does genuinely apply in most actual contexts. It is hard to talk about ‘a presumptive framework for communication’ (Brown and Levinson 1987) or the PP enabling language users ‘to assume that our interlocutors are cooperative in the first place’ (Leech 1983: 87) if this presumptiveness is not believed to have a firm grounding in empirical reality. The CP’s investment of normalcy, and related to it, the claim of ‘actual presumptiveness’ can be traced to Grice’s own expressed beliefs that most people do follow the CP, and that this would provide a sufficient basis for explaining how language users arrive at conversational implicature(s).

3.2.3. The risk of idealization A third salient characteristic of this receptive trend is the extent to which the CP is treated as an ‘ideal native speaker situational context’, against which the actual realities of interactions are to be described and accounted for. 5 Brown and Levinson (1987) have taken a very firm step in this respect, although a hesitation was originally there in Levinson (1979: 376). We quote:

“There are two ways in which the conflict between Grice’s general principles of conversation ana

the particular expectations of specific activities can be reconciled. The first is to seek for a more

sophisticated statement of Grice’s principles that will allow differing degrees of application of each

maxim and the corresponding adjustment of implicatures. The second is to accept Grice’s maxims as specifications of some basic unmarked communication context, deviations from which however

common are seen as special or marked. And there are various observations that suggest that a

notion of a basic unmarked communication context may be essential to pragmatics.”

4 Sperber and Wilson’s (1986) dismissal of the truthfulness maxim also fits into this trend, as it is

based on the claim that ethical matters such as truthfulness and sincerity are irrelevant to a theory of interpretation. 5 The problematic we here hit upon is roughly similar to that which has surrounded Chomsky’s notion of an ideal native speaker. It highlights that the ‘ideal native speaker’ concept, on the one hand, would just be the foundation for an explanatory theory of grammatical competence, while, on the other hand, it is nevertheless constructed on the basis of certain assumptions about the real native speaker, assumptions which are believed normally to hold in reality.

124 S. K. Sarangi, S. Slembrouck / Non-cooperation in communication

Indeed, Grice’s framework seems to derive its explanatory strength from the continuous tensions which arise between what it predicts on the one hand and what can be observed in interactions on the other. But Levinson’s preferred solution to the theoretical problems this poses, although later repeated in Brown and Levinson (1987) remains highly ambivalent. What should we take ‘unmarked communicative context’ to mean? Does it mean ‘under (Gricean) normal circumstances’ or does it mean ‘only under special circumstances’ or, does it mean ‘what theorists invent to account for the real’? And, if the latter is the case, as we suspect, how can one then talk of ‘presumptiveness’ in communicative contexts as a reality?

3.2.4. The social investiture behind the CP One final point we would like to make here relates to the ‘social investiture’ behind the CP. Paradoxically, although the trend seems to have been to divorce Grice’s theory from its assumptions about the nature of social behaviour in interaction, it is clear that the theoretical apparatus and the terminology in which it has been framed are far from value-free. ‘Coopera- tion’ may be used as a scientific term, but one cannot deny that it is an evaluative label. In fact, the CP is surrounded with a host of terms which are

far from socially neutral. As for Grice himself, his proviso, viz. ‘under normal circumstances’, brings

the reality of un-CP-like behaviour within the sphere of ‘abnormality’. Addi- tionally, ‘uncooperative’ is equated with ‘unreasonable’, ‘contrary to how we have been brought up’ and ‘what we should not do’, etc. In defence of the claim that people do follow the CP, Grice argues that ‘it is easier to tell the truth than to invent lies’. By implication, it will then be ‘difficult’ not to act in accordance with the CP. To conclude this list, one can also draw attention to the implicit negative evaluations which Grice (1975) has attached to un-CP- like behaviour, viz. as ‘violating maxims’ (i.e., a breach of universal rules), as ‘acting in secrecy’ (and therefore being suspect), as ‘misleading’, and, perhaps most of all, as ‘opting out’.

As for Brown and Levinson (1987) their investment of the CP with the attributes of ‘rational’ and ‘efficient’ behaviour, which are thought to be at the heart of the human cooperative linguistic endeavour, suggests that it is ‘irrational’ and ‘inefficient’ to act otherwise. We will return to this issue in section 5 where we examine how these value labels actually apply in interactions.

3.3. Social equality as a precondition for cooperation - The CP defines an

atypical situation

The third receptive position does not deny that there is a social basis for the CP to apply, but rejects the idea that ‘most people do follow the CP’. Both


Kiefer (1979) and Fairclough (1985) make the point that, for the CP to apply in the way Grice defined it, interactants must socially relate as equals. This means, among other things, communicators must have the same discoursal and pragmatic rights and obligations to take turns and to avoid silences and interruptions, and, most of all, they must have equal control over what for interactional purposes counts as ‘truthful’, ‘relevant’, ‘adequate’ and ‘sufficient’ information (Fairclough 1985). Although Fairclough does not provide any concrete examples, he nonetheless makes the point that “there do occur interactions which at least approximate to these conditions, but they are by no means typical of interactions in general” (1985: 757). He therefore concludes that mainstream pragmatics and discourse analysis have “virtually elevated cooperative conversation between equals into an archetype of verbal interaction in general” (1985: 757).

Pratt (1981) has drawn attention to a systematic neglect of affective relations, power relations and the issue of actual shared goals within the Gricean cooperative account of communication. She observes that “only some speech situations are characterized by shared objectives among speakers” (1981: 14). It can further be noted here that Brown and Levinson (1987), Leech (1983) and Leech and Thomas (1988) do emphasize the role of power and pragmatic parameters like rights and obligations in their respective frameworks. However, in the literature, to our knowledge, the issue of rights/ obligations in relation to what counts as ‘truthful’, ‘relevant’, ‘sufficient’, ‘clear and unambiguous’ information has so far received very little attention.

3.4. Linguistic and social solidarity

The fourth position we would like to outline is the one occupied by Mey (1987). His arguments run roughly similar to those put forward by Fairclough (1985) although Mey defines the notion of cooperation in an altogether different way. Mey argues that

L/ cooperation as an ideology is celebrated in numerous mythical folk-tale contexts and can be

used in almost any context. (This alone should make us cautious). . . . Thus, being together and

working together becomes a value in itself, without any connection to personal, economic, social,

or political relations.” (1987: 287-288)

By implication then, traditional Gricean pragmatics is seen as an extension of this wider phenomenon.

Like Fairclough (1985), Mey also argues that social equality is a necessary precondition for cooperation. Given the counterfactuality of this state of affairs, ‘social equality’ is what we should strive for, rather than what we encounter in the social world.6 The important nuance he therefore makes is

6 Mey’s stand here has to be seen against his discussion of the counterfactuality of Habermas’

(1968, 1970) constitutive conditions for genuine communication, on the one hand, and, his

126 S. K. Snrangi. S. Slembrouck / Non-cooperation in communication

that communication should be seen as the tool by which language users can work to arrive at cooperation:

“Communication is not cooperation, but it may lead to it, taken in its deepest sense as social and

linguistic solidarity.” (1987: 289)

Although Fairclough and Mey express fairly similar views in relation to Gricean pragmatics, they differ, however, where they talk about the precondi- tions for the CP to apply in real situations. Nor are their views free of problems. ‘Social equality’ and ‘linguistic and social solidarity’ are too general and vague notions, and, also run the risk of idealization, as much as the CP itself runs that risk. In section 5, we will return to the question of how in concrete circumstances it is possible to speak of social solidarity in relation to the notion of linguistic cooperation.

4. Traits of non-cooperation in institutional discourse

As pointed out earlier, Grice claims that most people, under normal circumstances, act cooperatively. In this section, we shall take up this issue in more detail as we set out to test the CP and the various assumptions and theoretical postulates that go with it against our institutional data.’ This, we believe, is of special interest given Fairclough’s (1985) and Mey’s (1987) challenge to the typicality and normality commonly attributed to CP-conforming behaviour. Further, as we pointed out in section 2, Grice’s theory, although claiming to pertain to conversation, has a potential for a more general theory of communication. But, to fulfill this potential, it may not be sufficient to just complement Grice’s maxims with sets of operational rules for various institutionalised types of discourse (as Schrnder (1987: 514), among others, suggests). So, the question whether institutional discourse conforms to Gricean predictions and assumptions is a legitimate one, not just for- the sake of examining such discourse data, but also in view of a general pragmatic theory of language use.

4.1. “Each participant recognizes . a common purpose or set of common purposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction.” (Grice 1975: 45)

Unless there is evidence to the contrary, Grice assumes that a mutually accepted common goal is central to human communication. But this conclu-

(partial) rejection of the ‘Karfeldt’ principle (see section 5). The fact that social equality is a counterfactual state does not exclude the possibility to cooperate and to relate with one’s interlocutors on an equal basis. Social solidarity, however, is a precondition for this state of affairs. ’ Our main concern in this section will be to discuss data so as to elaborate a number of themes. We shall refer to each case by an abbreviation and provide the contextual circumstances as we go along.

S. K. Saran@, S. Slembrouck / Non-cooperation in communication 127

sion does not emerge from our first example, the case FREE PRESCRIPTIONS

(hereafter FrPr). First, a quick resume of events. Patrick, a postgraduate student from a Common Market country, has recently moved to embark on a research programme at a British university and applies for ‘free prescriptions’ to the Department of Health and Social Security (hereafter DHSS).8 On the application form, under the section of ‘other forms of income’ (i.e., excluding salaries and wages), he states that he and his spouse were living on money borrowed from their parents and he gives the amount this included per week. A few weeks later, the DHSS replies, informing them that they would not be entitled to free prescriptions (see the appendix, FrPr 1). Acting on advice of a fellow British student, Patrick writes back to ask for an explanation for how the DHSS arrived at their decision (see the appendix, FrPr 2). In particular, he draws attention to the fact that, as they are living on borrowed money, this cannot count as an actual income. A week later they receive a second letter explaining that, under DHSS regulations, a loan does count as income (see the

appendix, FrPr 3). Coming now to the issue of social goal sharing, Patrick’s goal is to make a

case for his and consequently his spouse’s entitlement to free prescriptions. He, therefore, provides that information which he considers would prove their eligibility, but the DHSS’s use of it is quite different. If we are to follow the Gricean notion of cooperation, the institution, in such circumstances, would be expected to adopt, at least from the clients’ point of view, the client’s goal as its own, or act towards negotiating a ‘mutually accepted goal’. In this respect, the ensuing interaction should be characterized by an adherence to the CP by the client as well as by the institutional representative, but, this, as we will show, is not the case.

The above view is one in which the DHSS as an institution is primarily there to cater for the public service function of providing financial assistance to individuals. Obviously, this, we strongly feel, is a naive view. Constrained by its rules and resources, the institution can only cater for its public service function on a secondary plane. Rather than attune to individual cases, the institution’s primary goal will be to decide where and how individual clients fit into its overall classificatory framework. The question for the DHSS therefore is not whether Patrick’s needs can be met as an individual case on the basis of his own argumentation, but whether he and his spouse can be given entitlement to free prescriptions on the basis of institutional criteria. In that sense, the view that interactants attune to one another’s individual goals proves to be inadequate in this case. The DHSS invariably lays down the norms for the interaction and its public service function is not negotiated with the public. Patrick’s goal is therefore institutionally redefined as ‘applying for

8 The application was made directly to the local DHSS office. As we both know the student in

person. we were fortunate also to obtain additional information about his perception of the events.

128 S. K. Sarangi, S. Slemhrouck / Non-cooperorion in communication

eligibility to free prescription’ rather than ‘stating his entitlement’. The information which he provides is processed on this assumption.

Because institutions and clients have different goals, the interaction will not be cooperative in the Gricean sense. The DHSS ignores Patrick’s initiated interactional goal. By adding an extra specification under the category of ‘other income’ (viz. that the money declared there is ‘borrowed money’), Patrick flouts the quantity-maxim as he provides more information than normally is required by the form. He therefore implicates that what is declared does not count as ‘real income’ by his own standards. The reasons for him doing so may have been three-fold: (a) there was no other place for him to declare this money, but having to sign the document as ‘truthful and complete’ he needed to declare it somewhere; (b) he felt it would make his calculations credible; and, (c) that it would strengthen the case. The important point is that the DHSS did not take up this implicature so as to determine the next communicative step. Before arriving at their decision, the DHSS did not negotiate with Patrick the precise nature of their financial situation. Instead, they informed him that he and his spouse could not be given the entitlement, without even mentioning the reasons for their decision. The assumption there was ‘no explanation unless requested’. In other words, it is not deemed necessary to signal to Patrick that, despite the implicature about his perception of their financial situation, he and his spouse could not be entitled to free prescriptions.

The asymmetry in goals is not unusual in institutional discourse. Sarangi (1988) observes that in selection interviews the interviewer’s and interviewee’s goals can be seen as mutually exclusive at some level which, in turn, may account for discrepancies in the participants’ verbal behaviour. The situation in media discourse runs quite analogously, as the following instance of local newspaper reporting, the case Lancashire Evening Post (hereafter as LEP), shows. It concerns a news story which covered a speech made by Lancaster MP, E. Kellett-Bowman at the local Lancaster Conservative Club (see the Appendix, LEP2). The journalist did not attend the occasion, but wrote the story on the basis of a press release (see the Appendix, LEPl) and a number of other documents. In the newspaper item we find that certain sections of the press statement have not been represented within the quotations. In particular, they concern (a) sections in which the MP attacks the Labour Party directly (9 l-3) (b) sections which are potentially offensive to Labour Council- lors, and (c) the MP’s implicit suggestion that the then Labour-held Lanca- shire County Council is deliberately trying to sabotage the Action plan ($10) which she claims to be the sole effort of herself, the Tory majority in the City Council and Government Ministers. The attributed illocutionary force of ‘praise’ in the story ($1) highlights the journalist’s juggling act in relation to local interpersonal relations between politically allianced and opposing

S. K. Sarangi. S. Slembrouck / Non-cooperation in communication 129

groups.g The relevant point here is that the journalist is professionally required to retreat into a ‘neutral’ position, because to do otherwise may have a number of consequences such as jeopardizing the newspaper’s own survival as a local institution, which, in this case, depends on not offending the Labour City Councillors, the MP and the Labour-held County Council. For instance, to reinforce in the report that the MP attributes the plan to Conservative councillors and planners only, as the press release arguably suggests (e.g., $4-6) would be potentially offensive to the Labour minority in the council (since the ‘District Wide Action Plan’ is an official plan issued by a Council in its official capacity).

The journalist’s goal therefore is not so much to inform the public of what the MP has actually said, in its entirety, or to give a personal interpretation, but to safeguard the newspaper’s position in the local inter-institutional network. In this sense, newspaper reporting cannot simply be looked at on the level of communication between newspaper and readership, as Gricean theory invites us to do. Incidentally, the journalist called the MP’s statement a ‘lousy press release’ (private communication). This anecdotal detail makes a very interesting point about the premium on individual beliefs, desires and responsibilities in Gricean theory of communication. As Pratt (1981: 9) rightly observes, “speaking for oneself . . . names only one position among the many from which a person might speak in her everyday life”. She goes on to argue that this stress on individuality makes speech situations where people speak for or through other people look like marked. Casting this example in Gricean terms reveals this markedness of what is in reality far from an abnormal situation.

In this light, newspaper reporting can best be regarded as a translation process of mediation. However, it is not one which is crucially determined by concerns ‘from below’ (what readers would like to know), or by concerns of an individualized speaker (the journalist’s own interpretation of events), but it is one constrained by factors ‘from above’. In other words, as an information- providing institution, the newspaper is dependent on other institutions for its information, and, hence, for its own socio-economic survival. So, however much the reader may look for an adequate coverage of the wheelings and dealings of local politics, there will always be a gap between the reader’s goal and what the newspaper can afford to communicate.1°

4.2. “Conversational implicatures, as being essentially connected with certain general features of discourse” (Grice 197.5: 45) - A uniJed content for the maxims?

The notion of a mutually accepted goal or purpose is so central to Gricean

9 Although plausible as a representation, paragraph 5 does not read: ‘Emphasizing her political role in the negotiation process in an attempt at political advantage, Mrs Elaine Kellett-Bowman said:‘.

lo For more details about the various aspects involved in this case of media discourse, see Slembrouck (1988).

130 S. K. Sarangi. S. Slembrouck / Non-cooperation m communication

pragmatics that, without it, the proposed theory of implicature would fail. In this light, let us consider what we call the case of AZIZ (taken from Gumperz et al. 1979) to look at how precisely implicatures may come to play a role in the communication process. Aziz is unemployed, and although he did register on the dole, he has so far not received any unemployment benefit. He arranges an interview with the DHSS (see the appendix, Aziz). The way the interaction develops and the participants’ retrospective reports on it show again strikingly the absence of a mutually accepted goal. The social worker tries to find out what Aziz is entitled to (see also his reaction afterwards, 86- 106), while Aziz already makes it clear at the outset that he is entitled to unemployment benefit and does not want family income supplement, which he takes to be a shame on the family. His quest is to find out why he has not been paid any unemployment benefit, and not to find out whether or not he is eligible (06- 13).

Now, let us look more closely at this example in relation to the Gricean theory of implicature. Note first that in the interaction there is clearly confusion over the meaning of the term ‘social security’. Aziz takes it to mean ‘family income supplement’ (15516) while, for the social worker, ‘social security’ covers both ‘unemployment benefit’ and ‘family income supplement’, although he does not make that explicit at any point except when afterwards he reports in retrospection (98ff.). Twice in the interaction (05506 and 1415) Aziz makes it manifest that ‘social security’ for him does not include ‘unemployment benefit’ and that he does not treat it as a cover term for various social welfare categories. According to Gricean theory, we have to assume that Aziz and the social worker both observe the CP. The theory further invites one to assume that Aziz flouts the maxim of quality in 05506 (because, he says something which, in the DHSS frame of reference, cannot strictly speaking be true). The same applies to 14-15. Of course, the client’s and the representative’s use of the DHSS terminology runs asymmetrical, but, at both points, the social worker is invited to infer that Aziz takes ‘social security’ to mean something different than what he assumes it to mean. Gricean theory predicts that the social worker must resolve the apparent contradiction between the institutional definition of the terms and Aziz’s use of them. The Gricean analysis would run as follows: Aziz does not ‘opt out’. He can be assumed to be truthful. His turn apparently is one at odds with what is true. Therefore Aziz communicates something else, following which the social worker will attempt to work out what Aziz means, and at least enquire what Aziz takes ‘social security’ to mean, or, spell out to him what the three terms mean as institutionally defined.

An important observation we would like to make here is that the quality- maxim applies differently for both interactants, whereas the Gricean scheme assumes it to apply in the same way. Mapped onto the example, this means that both Aziz and the social worker would know that ‘social security’ covers


‘unemployment benefit’ and ‘family income supplement’ and they would

assume one another to know this. But, as we find, Aziz does not assume that ,‘social security’ is a cover term. This makes the point that the values which go together with the Gricean maxims in actual contexts are dependent on the social position and background knowledge of the communicators in relation to the topic talked about. They are context-dependent, and need not be symmetrical.

It may appear from the above that Aziz, being a non-native speaker, is likely to be regarded as ‘linguistically incompetent’, and unable to grasp the intricacies of DHSS terminology. As the social worker points out after the interview, even native speakers face the same difficulties when it comes to understanding what these terms refer to (see 88-103). However, on close reading, Aziz’s linguistic competence may not be what is really at stake. Consider the following analogous incident, viz. the case WALLET. I1 Pat, while shopping in a Marks & Spencer’s store, discovers that her wallet is missing, and rings the Preston police. She believed that the wallet had been stolen, as she could not imagine it having fallen out of her bag. When it came to reporting the matter on the phone, she was asked whether the wallet was ‘lost or stolen’. As she did not want to commit herself fully to saying that it was stolen, because she could not be entirely sure, she replied: ‘most likely stolen’ (cf. the quality-maxim, ‘do not say that for which you lack evidence’). The result was that, without being replied to, she was connected to the ‘lost goods’ department. No statement was taken down. Instead, the ‘lost goods’ officer enquired about the colour and brand of the wallet, checked whether it had been brought in, and, as this was not the case, Pat was advised to ring back later.

The point here is that for the police the terms ‘lost’ and ‘stolen’ are two incompatible categories, because each entails a different course of action. Consequently, the police required the wallet to be classified on an either-or basis, not so much to come as closely as possible to the real event as experienced by Pat, but to expedite their own action, which is further constrained by the institutional routines. The reflection of this on the communicative level is that for both interlocutors the ‘content’ of the quality maxim is not ‘shared’. Rather, the maxim applies differently for the two interactants: for the police it cannot be true that something is ‘lost or stolen’ at the same time, while for Pat the wallet is ‘missing’ (whether ‘lost’ or ‘stolen’).

Can we here conclude, as the social worker does in the case AZIZ, that it is just a matter of linguistic incompetence about the meaning of lexical items which brings communication to a halt? We feel that linguistic (in)competence as an explanation of the phenomena we looked at in the case AZIZ falls short

I1 This is a real incident, but the turns in the telephone dialogue have been reconstructed. We have changed the person’s name.

132 S. K. Surangi. S. Siembrouck 1 Non-cooperation in communicalion

of an adequate ground, certainly so in the case WALLET. Following Bourdieu’s (1976) stress on the situational legitimation of meanings, we would like to argue that Aziz and Pat, unlike the social worker and the police officer, do not possess the linguistic authority, or more generally, the ‘competence’ to impose reception. The meanings which Aziz attaches to the terms ‘social security’ and ‘unemployment benefit’ probably have legitimacy in home talk, but he does not manage to extend this legitimacy to his encounter with the social worker. Similarly, Pat’s non-technical use of the terms ‘lost’ and ‘missing’ remains inconsequential in directing the discourse.

For these reasons, we rather prefer to argue that a theory of communication cannot take an institutionally defined truth, i.e., a socially relative one, as an absolute one for explaining and describing what goes on in interactions. To characterize Aziz as ‘linguistically incompetent’ (in the classic sense of the

word) does precisely that. As our discussion shows, the use of the CP as a device for explaining how language users arrive at meaning forces us into a position where one has to postulate a mutually accepted and defined content for the Gricean maxims, and the risk is indeed that the institutional defini- tions are given an absolute, scientific status.

Coming back to the issue of cooperation in the Gricean sense, there is an absence of negotiation over terms in the data we have examined so far. In the FREE PRESCRIPTIONS case, there is no negotiation over the term ‘income’, and, initially there is no explication that a loan will be treated as income. As the events turn out, although Patrick may have successfully communicated the implicature that he does not consider the loan as an income, it is the institution’s definition of what counts as true which gains the upper hand. In the follow-up correspondence, Patrick fails to negotiate the definition of ‘income’. Similarly, in the case AZIZ, the social worker does not point out what he means by unemployment benefit, family income supplement and social security, and, in the WALLET-case, the police officer, before connecting Pat to the relevant department, does not explain that an explicit categorization as ‘lost’ or ‘stolen’ is required and how that affects subsequent action. Also in the case LEP, although it is a case of written discourse and there is no ‘turn-taking’, there is no negotiation with the readership over the paper’s information providing function.

Negotiation, for us, would minimally mean spelling out what the terms refer to in their institutionally defined senses and how they relate to courses of action to follow. Because such negotiation does not take place, it can be concluded that the interactions referred to above are not cooperative in the Gricean sense. It further appears that ‘what counts as true’ is subject to power relations (Mey 1987). Pratt rightly points out that it is quite common “for one person or group . . to be defining what quantity is enough, what topics are relevant, what counts as truth or adequate evidence, who gets to speak at all” (1981: 13). We shall now explore, with particular reference to the case AZIZ,

S. K. Sarangi, S. Slembrouck 1 Non-cooperation in communication 133

why ‘what counts as true’ is not made mutually manifest between Aziz and the social worker.

4.3. “Speak like a peasant with the peasant population, but in Latin with people

of higher education. ” (Kar[feldt 1920, cited in Mey 1987: 281)

Let us consider here the social worker’s point of view. As already pointed out above, he reports that his goal in the interaction is to find out what Aziz is entitled to, as institutionally defined. In order to do so, he sets for himself particular criteria for informativeness, based on particular assumptions about his co-interactant: ‘so rather than talking about unemployment benefit and supplementary benefit I thought that would confuse him so I thought I keep it simpler and talk about social security’ (see 98-103). In other words, from the outset he decides to be less clear than is maximally and institutionally possible so as to ‘not create confusion’. In that sense, he applies what Mey (1987) has referred to as the Karlfeldt Principle - “to speak like a peasant with the peasant population, but in Latin with people of higher education”. According to Allwood (1976: 153), “this principle can in a more technical sense be interpreted as a sender’s competent consideration of a receiver’s cognitive and linguistic background”. l2

The Karlfeldt Principle, as Mey points out, puts the conditions for true communication on the sender-receiver relationship, with emphasis on the sender. Following Habermas (1968, 1970) Mey rejects the validity of this principle as a necessary and sufficient condition for communication. Our Azrz-example in fact confirms Mey’s contention. Starting off with particular preconceptions about the client as ‘peasant’, the social worker fails to pay attention to what Aziz actually communicates (note again how Aziz makes it straight from the beginning that he is entitled to unemployment benefit). The social worker reports afterwards that Aziz apparently ‘didn’t seem to know to understand’ (110-l 11) and that ‘he seemed to ramble a lot’ and ‘contradict himself (93ff.). In that sense, the social worker has not only stereotyped the client but reports that his expectations about the client’s capacities are largely confirmed by what has gone on in the interaction. Paradoxically, partly because of the poet-peasant-syndrome which is invoked to ‘smooth out’ and

‘facilitate’ communication, the communication fails. The Karlfeldt-principle puts the responsibility for successful communication with the ‘poet’ (in this case the social worker), but as it appears from the interaction, the social worker does not relate to the ‘peasant’ in the peasant’s terms, although he

I* Incidentally, Sperber and Wilson (1986) make a very similar claim: communication is an asymmetrical process, and it is up to the sender to make the correct assumptions about the kind of background information the receiver will have available.

134 S. K. Saran@, S. Slemhrouck 1 Non-cooperution in communication

believes to be doing that. It is precisely for this reason that he fails to pick up what the ‘peasant’ says and implicates. I3

4.4. “Don’t shoot the poet!” (Mey 1987: 285)

It is apparent from the above that stereotypes or preconceptions can account for a failed implicature, if the term is appropriate here. (Although Aziz goes through great pains to make himself understood, the different use of the DHSS terminology may have escaped his awareness.) But, certainly, our analysis of this case urges one to reconsider the notion of shared knowledge in communication and underlines the need to upfront asymmetricalities in the assumptions which interactants make about one another’s language use and the world they talk about. Particularly with reference to the poet-peasant syndrome, where the stereotypes are inevitable, this may result in an impasse in communication (as is apparent from the social worker’s statement ‘yah I think we better start again really Mr Aziz now eh’ (22-23)). What Aziz reports retrospectively (‘they don’t want to understand what I am saying’) in fact suggests that there already exists a barrier at the very outset for both interactants. Apart from a lack of willingness on the part of the social worker to understand the peasant’s ‘story’, Aziz’s conviction that the social worker will suspect him of making things up also bears testimony to the fact that the kind of presumptiveness we actually encounter does not conform to what the CP predicts.

4.5. Actual assumptions versus Gricean presumptions

The institutional representative assumes the client not to be adequately informative, and, therefore, from this perspective, his questioning behaviour may be justified. From Aziz’s point of view, such ‘cross-examination’ is out of place, because Aziz believes that he is entitled to unemployment benefit and what he wants is an explanation for why he has not received any so far. Thus what both interlocutors actually assume about one another does not conform to a presumptive CP. For instance, Aziz assumes the social worker to assume that Aziz will say non-truths (i.e. he assumes his interlocutor not to assume that he will obey the quality-maxim). Conversely, the social worker does not assume that he must be clear and unambiguous (i.e. he does not think it necessary for himself to obey the manner maxim in the institutionally defined sense). Grice predicts further that implicatures are made on the assumption that the sender assumes the receiver to obey the CP. As we have shown, this is clearly not the case here.

I3 Along the lines of the poet-peasant syndrome, it would be interesting to look at how doctors deal with the communicative problems in doctor-patient interactions.


4.6. “Grasping everything that makes an utterance valid is grasping much of what constitutes a society.” ( York 1986: 8)

More importantly now, unless one looks at the respective interactants’ social and economic position, one cannot satisfactorily explain the interaction. In fact, we have only uncovered the tip of an iceberg. Aziz’s communicative behaviour has to be set against the collective and individual positions taken up by the Asian ethnic community within Britain (cf. how he refers to the unacceptability of being on family income supplement, the shame about being unemployed in the family context, the belief that the ethnic minority is being

blamed by the native population for being on income support, the stereotyping of the DHSS, etc.). In that sense, Aziz’s language performance reflects his socioeconomic conditions in a given society. Similarly, the social worker’s professionalism in dealing with clients underlies the set of assumptions which he brings to the interaction. In particular, we should recognize the growing awareness within that sector of public service about the problematicality of communication with clients and how institutions have attempted to cope with this. Additionally, there is also the factor of bureaucrats being expected to act out an institutionally defined role which complies with the socioeconomic position of the institutions they represent.

A similar observation can be made about the non-attribution ‘rule’ in news reporting. When newspapers cover the on-goings of lobby briefings, they cannot explicitly reveal their source, but can at best only hint (e.g. ‘A senior Minister said . ..‘. ‘A Cabinet Member confirmed . ..‘. etc.). Consequently, what in the newspaper-reader discourse will count as appropriately informative and unambiguous is directly determined by factors outside the immediate situational context. The maxim of quantity/manner then would read as ‘do not give more information than allowed by your information-exchange contract with the other institution’. In order to explain questions like how people arrive at meaning, how the Gricean maxims apply, and what is presumptive in communication, it is necessary to bear in mind the socioeconomic conditions within which the interaction takes place. As Pratt (1981: 9), among others, has observed, “... people always speak from and in a socially constituted position . . . defined in a speech situation by the intersection of many [possibly conflicting] forces” (our brackets). Against this background of a wider social context, we shall now look in more detail at the social investiture behind the CP and the spoils and losses of cooperation in the Gricean sense. On this basis, we believe, it will be possible to arrive at a more precise characterization of the conditions under which something like the CP can actually become presumptive.

5. “Communication is not cooperation, but it may lead to cooperation.” (Mey 1987: 289)

So far, we have argued that rather than being considered an abstract notion,

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‘cooperation’ has to be seen in terms of the pursuit of goals with social and economic investment. It has to be seen in the light of the multiplicity and complexity of participants’ actual and potential socioeconomic interests and allegiances, From this viewpoint, individuals are not brought up to cooperate in the absolute sense, but to cooperate with some people rather than others. In the process of socialization, they have further learned that some people, in certain discourse contexts, will be uncooperative, and, that, in some cases, they themselves will be expected to be uncooperative as well. The question is therefore: who does (not) cooperate with whom, in what circumstances, and to which particular purpose?

In order to clarify this, let us have another look at the FrPr-example. Patrick finds his goals thwarted by having conformed to the Gricean notion of cooperation. Precisely by communicating what he believed to be truthful, he failed to accomplish his goal (i.e. to establish his free prescriptions entitlement). Had he declared the borrowed money as ‘savings’ which he monthly drew from his home bank account, he would probably have been entitled. In other words, he could have been more ‘parsimonious’ with the truth by not mentioning the loan in the first place; or, alternatively, he could have cast his money source as ‘savings’ and thus established a crucial difference, as savings do not count as ‘income’ for the DHSS. But this would have presupposed that Patrick was in a position to predict how the DHSS processes applications for free prescriptions, and consequently, he could have acted as a ‘professional client’, a ‘peasant-poet’.14 The question here is not whether Patrick has a financial situation which he believes entitles him to free prescriptions; it is a matter of how he goes about declaring it.

Similarly, in the case WALLET, Pat might arguably have got a ‘better deal’ out of her contact with the police, had she actually been fully committed about her wallet being stolen. Police action could then have taken the more active form of searching, rather than the passive one of waiting until the good is being returned. Consider in this respect the following, real-life incident of a lost credit card (we have anonymized the name). Whereas Pat was non- committal in observing the quality-maxim, Cora told us that she intentionally did not want to commit herself to stating that her credit card was stolen so as to avoid ‘potential suspects’ being interrogated and harassed by the police. This case points up how interests at one level (retrieving the card, preventing abuse) can conflict with other interests (here, on a broader societal scale, the assumed scope of subsequent police action and its undesirability). Interes- tingly, what seems to be desirable on the part of the clients is not simply to act

I4 Expanding Mey (1987), we assume that people do not fall into the neat categories of ‘poet’

and ‘peasant’. Even when they do, there is no guarantee that they will remain either a ‘peasant’ or a ‘poet’ throughout. The ‘professional client’, whom we refer to as ‘peasanttpoet’, is the ‘peasant’ who through social experience decides to play the game the poet’s way. In a similar fashion, we can also talk about the ‘poet-peasant’ as the ‘poet’ who, to some extent, plays it the peasant’s way.

S. K. Sarangi. S. Slembrouck 1 Non-cooperation in communication 137

in accordance with the CP (say what one believes to be true), but to attune to what institutionally can count as acceptable and true on the one hand, and safeguard one’s own socioeconomic interests on the other. For pragmatic analysis, this means that, in a discussion of (in)sincerity in language use, the factor of participants’ concrete socio-economic goals and interests always has to be borne in mind.

Returning to our earlier point about the social investiture behind the CP (section 3.2.4) the observations we have just made illustrate that values like ‘efficiency’ and ‘rationality’ may exactly apply in opposite senses in the cases FrPr and WALLET. Had they denied their own perceptions and ‘phrased’ their situations, Patrick and Pat would have been both ‘efficient’ and ‘rational’ in the successful pursuit of their goals. In that sense, it is highly suspect to reserve for the CP precisely the attributes of ‘rationality’ and ‘efficiency’, as Brown and Levinson (1987) and others have done.

This also raises another ethical issue. Clients like Patrick are bound by their signature on the application form, which makes them declare that they are being both ‘truthful’ and ‘complete’ (i.e. a combined quality-quantity- maxim). In other words, Grice’s own formulation of ‘secret violation of maxims’ has a real existence in society. Mey’s following observation underscores the clients’ moral dilemma:

“While there seems to be a growing understanding of this phenomenon (people are getting

accustomed to not believing what politicians tell them), it is still the case that our negative

reactions against ‘private insincerity’ in many cases need to be adjusted, both actively and passively.” (1987: 296)15

From the perspective of the bureaucrat, the question is exactly the other way round. Why does the bureaucrat not sidestep his/her institutional role, and ‘go Gricean’, as it were? Again severe risks are attached to his/her doing so. For a bureaucrat to negotiate terms of reference in the case at hand would mean going beyond the institutionally defined role, and, by consequence, denying the institutionally defined truths.

‘Opting in’ (using Grice’s term in a different sense) for the bureaucrat is therefore likely to heighten role conflict. Because of his/her pivotal function to mediate between the client and the institution s/he is representing (cf. Fair- clough 1985) role conflict is almost inevitable at some point or other, as the bureaucrat will be required to deal with the client’s reality in relation to the institution’s and is bound to perceive the inherent contradictions in this.16 Further risks attached to ‘opting-in’ lie in the disorientation this may possibly

I5 As Meyers-Scotton (1983: 116) points out, “the speaker following the cooperative principle necessarily maintains the status quo”. I6 Cf. Habermas’ (1968, 1970) critique of the notion of a unified social role-concept which presupposes a single interpretation for role categories and the role-bearer’s identification with his/ her role performance.

138 S. K. Saran@, S. Slemhrouck / Non-cooperation in communicarion

create in the discourse. As we pointed out, different social positions lead to different knowledge structures and hence different perceptions. A bureaucrat’s cooperative behaviour may arouse suspicion on the face of existing stereotypes as to what does and does not count as expected and acceptable. Here is the risk of appearing to the cleint as ‘patronizing’, ‘displaying false solidarity’, and, above all, ‘acting uninstitutionally’. Additionally, there is the bureaucrat’s own socioeconomic survival, which is conditional upon his/her acting in accordance with the institution’s interests.

When does the CP become mutually presumptive then? The conclusion seems to be that such mutual presumptions are only possible given certain mutual guarantees. In the case of bureaucrat4ient interaction, we believe, it would have to include a sufficient back-up from the client. This means that both act together in pursuit of their own socioeconomic interests, although that may, for the bureaucrat, amount to putting the institution’s interests at risk. It follows from our earlier argument about the relevance of social experience that such a situation presupposes a shared social ground of some kind or other. It further implies a neutralization of conflicting socioeconomic interests and/or an agreed common socioeconomic purpose. Optimally, it also means that within the interaction, social differences become neutralized. The point we would like to emphasize, though, is that ‘cooperation’ never occurs as a value in the abstract, it is always tied to a condition of a shared social interest and investment (cf. Schroder’s (1987) rejection of an equation of ‘cooperative’ with ‘disinterested’). In view of this, it is now worth considering what parts of Grice’s theory can be salvaged.

6. Gricean pragmatics revisited

First, we wish to abandon a notion of ‘cooperation as social goal sharing’ as an overarching presumptive feature in interactions. In reality, it makes more

sense to talk about goal ‘sharing’, goal ‘adoption’, goal ‘imposition’, goal ‘resistance’, etc. As properties of interaction and social action, these categories, in their application, depend on individual and group social relations as well as pre-constituted social role relations within an ‘activity type’ (Levinson 1979). Moreover, they are relative categories as they are manifested in multiple and complex, mixed forms at various levels. Hence, it makes little sense to attempt a categorization of situation types as either ‘cooperative’ or ‘non-cooperative’ (cf. Schroder’s (1987 : 5 13-5 15) critique of May 198 1). One social subject may wish to keep a number of (possibly conflicting) interests simultaneously alive in an interaction. This is clearly illustrated in the case CORA, where Cora’s stake in retrieving the credit card could not be reconciled with her wish to limit the scope of police action.

Additionally, each of these goal categories can only govern the actions of


individuals within certain constraints. Our examples in section 4 illustrate how the degree of goal sharing with the client is usually constrained by the socioeconomic survival needs of institutional representatives and of the institution itself. Interactionally speaking, there will inevitably be a degree of goal imposition by the institutional member onto the client. This we have earlier characterized as ‘non-cooperative’ behaviour, one that does not conform to the Gricean notion of cooperation in interaction.

Our second observation follows from the first: a notion of cooperation in the abstract cannot be taken to presuppose the simultaneous observance of the maxims of quality, quantity, relation and manner. In situations where some social goals are in conflict, it is still the case that interactants obey certain regulative norms and conventions for the exchange of information.17 A case in point is provided by Pavlidou’s (1991: 23-24) study of faculty meetings, where “sharing of interests (be they political, occupational or scientific) is the exception rather than the rule” and the only common goal is “to get through the agenda as quickly as possible”. Here the communication partners show a high degree of cooperation in trying “to make their contributions as clear as possible with respect to their (overt) goals”. Following our analysis, we wish to maintain that there is a relationship between goal sharing/goal conflict, etc. and the observance of certain maxims, but that relationship is more complex than what Grice foresaw in his original scheme. Therefore, it does not suffice to maintain theoretically that Grice’s scheme would be about ‘formal’, ‘linguistic cooperation’ and divorce this from ‘substantive cooperation’ (see section 2). That way one loses sight of the correlations that do occur between, let’s say, the imposition of a goal and witholding some bits of information.

To take this a step further, the categories of ‘quality’, ‘quantity’, ‘relation’ and ‘manner’ have (possibly) validity as explanatory categories for how people arrive at implicatures. However, as we have shown through our data analysis, the explanation of implicatures has to be set against the activity type and also against the social positions of the speaking and listening subjects.18 For instance, our explanation of Aziz’s indirectness in communicating that social security for him does not count as a cover term for family income supplement and unemployment benefit clearly brings out how and where social experience takes priority over rigid activity-type-specific norms.

I’ We are indebted to Roger Hewitt for pointing out that in such interactional contexts, the

notion of ‘coordination’ rather than (non)cooperation may be more useful. This underscores the point though that whatever terminology is selected the question remains of the social applications of particular terms and their evaluative connotations. I8 Levinson (1979) refers to these as activity-type-specific inferential schemata for implicatures. From this restrictive view, deviation from activity-type-specific norms is to be accounted for as ‘incompetence’ or ‘ignorance’, whereas we would prefer to look at such deviations both in terms of non-observance of activity-type-specific norms and the social experience of speaking subjects.

140 S. K. Saran@. S. Slembrouck / Non-cooperation in communiculion

Thirdly, we posit that the content of the Gricean maxims (what counts as true, sufficient, relevant, clear and unambiguous) derives from the pragmatic context and can only be explained by recourse to an examination of the societal dimensions of the discourse, i.e. the social positions of the speaking and listening subjects and the societal anchoring of activity-type specific norms for information exchange. This means, crucially, that it is not sufficient to talk about ‘degrees of application of maxims’ or ‘maxim suspension’ in order to account for variability over activity-types (cf. Levinson 1979). Such assumptions presuppose an actually unified content for the maxims, independent of interactional context and participation, and thus, leave too little room for variation with relation to the social background and position of the participants.

What is most striking about Grice’s own example of the letter of recom- mendation (see section 2) is that it would be unlikely to occur in a real situation. Firstly, a professor with some experience in writing reference letters would never write anything like that. And, secondly, if it did occur, it would probably be taken to reflect on the professor’s failure to observe the activity- type-specific norms for information exchange rather than implicating his intention not to recommend the candidate in question. This further illustrates how maxims in activity-types have specific contents. By extension, it also highlights the failure of attempts to determine how people arrive at meaning in isolation from the kind of meanings that can be and are produced in a particular institutional context. Individual communicative intentions are constrained by the interactional and social history of the speaking subjects and the activity type. Yet, as we point out below in section 7, communicative contributions may also have a determining role in the constructions of social positions and, more importantly, in the development of activity-type-specific norms and conventions.

The fourth point we wish to make is that the contents of the maxims of information exchange, and, the presumptions which interlocutors make about one another as to the likelihood of a particular kind of informativeness are indeed very often asymmetrical. These assumptions therefore must be described in terms of not only ‘self-perception’ and ‘other-perception’, but in addition, for instance, of ‘perception of other-perception about the self (cf. Aziz’s report that he suspected the social worker to assume that he (Aziz) was lying all the time). Furthermore, the nature of implicatures and the question whether they are successfully carried or not will depend on these assumptions as well as on the existing maxim-contents in the activity type.19 Given the

I9 Sperber and Wilson (1986) have drawn attention to the limitations in conveying implicatures (predictability and guarantee of successful communication). Yet, their approach is basically

inadequate for a number of reasons: they put the responsibility for successful communication on the speaker; they cast unsuccessful communication in terms of misunderstandings (i.e. they marginalize inevitable mismatches); and more importantly, they fail to recognize the relevance of the societal context and speaker background as determining factors in the nature of indirect

communication.

S. K. Sarangi. S. Slembrouck / Non-cooperalion in communication 141

potential of asymmetry, it is clear that what counts as ‘truthful’, ‘sufficient’, ‘clear’, ‘unambiguous’ and ‘relevant’ may be negotiable in actual situational contexts, or, as our examples show, may be imposed by interlocutors upon one another. In short, the contents of the Gricean maxims, within activity- types, both locally and globally, are subject to relations of power and solidarity.

Fifth and finally, attributes such as ‘(ir)rational’, ‘(in)efficient’, ‘human benevolence’, ‘ethical’, ‘moral’, etc. reflect the speaking subjects’ social perceptions and backgrounds vis-ci-vis goals, interests, activity types, etc. Because these attributes are socially ‘loaded’ and apply differently for different interactants, it makes little sense to label the original Gricean scheme as the supreme form of rational and efficient communicative behaviour. Nor does it make sense to postulate a theory of communication which only considers ‘efficiency’ and ‘rationality’ as governing and constitutive properties of communication, without taking in the roles of ‘stereotyping’, ‘prejudice’, ‘preconceptions’, ‘affections’, and so on. This meta-terminology has to be chosen in accordance with the social connotations that attach to terms for various groups in society.

7. Conclusion: Towards a social pragmatics

In the preceding sections, in order to account for our data, we had to draw attention to precisely those factors which Grice does not include in his scheme, viz. factors of a societal kind such as the social position of communicators, their often asymmetrical knowledge structure as reflecting those positions, the dependency of maxim contents on the social situation (where our analysis amounts to linking the Gricean type of analysis with a form of socio- semantics), etc. Extending our claim, the position we thus take is that pragmatics must set itself to undertake the study of language use in relation to the societal conditions of the language users and must equally pay attention to the function of discourse as a form of social practice. In Mey’s (1987: 296) terms, this means that

“A pragmatic theory of language use considers the concrete circumstances in which language use is employed; in particular it tries to identify the users and their societal conditions.”

Here, it is worth pointing to Leech and Thomas’ (1988) contention that pragmatics is at a crossroads between developing a cognitive theory of communication and a social one. We strongly believe that a cognitive theory cannot be developed unless it takes on a social perspective. Language use always takes place in a situational context and that context is social. There- fore, the cognitive dimensions in interaction cannot be conceived of in isolation from this social context. However, while drawing attention here to Leech

142 S. K. Sarangi. S. Slembrouck / Non-cooperation in communication

and Thomas’ speculation about future directions, we must make it equally clear that pragmatics, in order to fulfil this claim, needs to transcend its original self-imposed constraints.

In this connection, pragmatics, first of all, has to go from attempting to explain how people arrive at meaning towards examining how the production and interpretation of meaning is constrained by societal conditions. We agree with what Haberland and Mey said more than a decade ago:

“The pragmatic question par excellence is therefore not: What does an utterance mean? But: How

did this utterance come to be produced? _.. Such a perspective is identical with the situational

framework that presupposes, as its conditions, the whole of the societal structure in which the

speakers of the language live.” (1977: 8)

An adequate theory which aims at explaining how people arrive at meaning cannot come into existence unless it brings the social positioning of the language users and the societal bearings on the situational context to the forefront.

This brings us to our second point: the determinants of discourse lie far beyond the individual speaker-hearer relationship in the immediate situational context. On a wider scale, pragmatics therefore should be particularly interested in how the societal organization of life affects both the interactants and their linguistic exchanges in a given situational context. We also assume that discourse has effects for both speakers and hearers, as well as others, beyond the situational context. As Fairclough (1989) and others have argued, the societal structure not only bears on the discourse, discourse practices affect the societal structure as well.

Still, the aim to develop a social pragmatics, or to put it in Haberland and Mey’s (1977) terms, a ‘pragma-linguistics’, is not problem-free. The main

problem, as we see it, is how to link succesfully together the broader macro- sociological context with the micro-analysis of situated discourse. As a first step, insights from recent work in critical theory and critical linguistics are helpful. At the same time, we need interdisciplinary research in order to prevent us from lapsing into preconceptions about both the nature and workings of the social organization of life, the relationship between the social order and the discoursal domain, etc. York’s adage that ‘grasping everything that makes an utterance valid is grasping much of what constitutes a society’ provides pragmatics with both a worthwhile and a necessary challenge; it also makes its task incredibly huge as, arguably, social analysis can be expanded almost infinitely.


Appendix

FrPr 1

Department of Health and Social Security

If you get in touch with us tell us this reference number

. -

If you ring ask for extension

Date 13-2-87

To:

Your claim for free prescriptions

We are sorry to tell you that you are not entitled to free prescriptions at the moment.

We have ticked the boxes which tell you more about your claim.

q We cannot give you a refund for the prescriptions you claimed for. 0 You will get a refund if you have to pay more than f . . for

prescriptions in one week. You will be entitled to this refund as long as there are no changes to do with you, your family or your money.

Other help you could get We have sent you some leaflets with this letter. They tell you about other ways you could get help with prescriptions.

If you want to ask us anything about NHS charges please get in touch with us. Our phone number and address are at the top of this letter.

Form PC3N

144

FrPr 2

S.K. Sarangi, S. Slembrouc& 1 Non-cooperarion in communication

17 FEB 1987 To Dept. of Health and Social Security

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your letter of Febr. 13 informing me that I am not entitled to free prescriptions.

I’m very surprised at this decision as according to the information 1 have my situation is such that I am entitled in that I have no income whatsoever at the moment and live on borrowings from my parents.

I should be grateful therefore if you could inform me exactly how you arrived at your decision. My reference no. is ____ - ._._.

Yours faithfully,


FrPr 3

Department of Health and Social Security

Date 20-2-87

Please ask for extension . Reference number . .- . .

To:

Dear .

With regard to your letter of 17-2-87. The reason that you are not entitled to free prescriptions is that you have an income of E132.50. The fact that this is a loan from your parents does not matter in this case as under our regulations we have to treat it as income.

Yours sincerely,

Form MFI7A Env EWl8

146 S. K. Sarangi, S. Slembrouc+ / Non-cooperation in communication

LEPI

PRESS RELEASE FRIDAY, 17 JAN 1987

____________ --------________

61

92

$3

$4

$5

86

$7

$8

119

810

§ll

“The Labour Party’s dislike of the self-employed never ceases to amaze me” said Elaine Kellett Bowman, speaking in Lancaster on Saturday. “They try and exclude them from employment figures. You try telling a self-employed man (or better still his wife) who has seen him work all the hours there are, that he isn’t ‘employed’, and run for cover fast!” she said.

“For years we’ve been the only country in Europe to exclude the self-employed from the calculation of the working population. If you exclude 2,000,OOO people from the register of the workforce, that inflates the percentage of the unemployed, which is what the Labour Party wants us to continue to do.

The Labour Party aren’t really interested in people. Figures and percentages are more in their line.

We do care about people, and it’s to help people - men and women alike ~ that the City Council has launched its imaginative District Wide Action Plan to promote the economic development of our area by co-ordination and collabo- ration and provide 1000 new jobs.

It’s a splendid and,fursighted plan to co-ordinate the work of the City Council and the various Government Departments, which can be of assistance.

When Nicholas Ridely came to see our problems,for himself; he asked us to drab

up such a plan, and I’m sure he will be pleased wjith the City Council’s response.

We know that unemployment will rise with the completing of Heysham Stage 2, and we’re determined to plan ahead to meet these problems, building on our strength and developing our potential.

In every case, public funds are used to attract private capital with a “multi- plier” effect. Public funds will be concentrated on the clearing and the development of 6 existing sites, making them highly attractive to the private sector.

So successful have we been in attracting new firms, that we have very few serviced sites left. The latest addition to our family, “Africa?, is literally having its premises built around it, and it is an amazing example of enterprise and co-operation between the City and those whom we wish to welcome here.

The M6 link will provide a lot of jobs, and so will the rebuilding of the market and the development of the City Centre, at present being deliberately obstruc- ted and delayed by the County Council, with the consequent delay of jobs it will provide.

New,Jirms are coming steadily to our area, drawn by the great attractions we have to ogler. If we can accelerate these important and varied schemes, we will ofSset the jobs lost by the run down at the power station and be able to ofier to young and old, men and women alike, an assured,fiture. ”

NOTE: Underlinings are as in the original, except ‘imaginative’ in $4 which was underlined by the journalist. The sections in italics are those which were quoted in the news report.


LEP 2

NEWS STORY LANCASHIRE EVENING POST, THURSDAY, 29 JAN 1987

Cash SOS to stop jobs disaster

AN action-plan aimed at preventing North Lancashire from becoming an unemployment disaster area has been praised by a local MP.

An SOS-style appeal for the cash to create thousands of new jobs has been sent by Lancaster City Council to five Government ministers.

It reveals that the area faces 23 per cent unemployment by 1989 unless urgent measures are taken to offset the rundown of the giant Heysham Power Sta- tion construction site.

Investment

The plan calls for public cash to be concentrated in six areas where large sums of private investment would follow.

AZIZ

Lancaster MP Mrs Elaine Kellett - Bowman described the plan as “splendid and farsighted.”

She said: “When Nicholas Ridley came to see our problems for himself, he asked us to draw up such a plan. I am sure he will be pleased with the city council’s response.

We know that unemployment will rise with the completion of Heysham Stage Two, and we’re determined to plan ahead to meet these problems.

New firms are coming steadily into our area, drawn by the great attractions we have to offer.

If we can accelerate these important and varied schemes, we will offset the jobs lost by the rundown.

We will be able to offer to young and old, men and women alike, an assured future.”

[SW = Social Worker AZ = Aziz RI = Research Investigator]

01 SW: why have you come to see me MR Aziz AZ: I come to see you sir

02 SW: AZ: because eh I’m unemployed now a days I’m facing through

03 SW: AZ: many difficulties lot of problem coming because short of

04 SW: AZ: money and these things

148 S. K. Saran@, S. Slembrouck 1 Non-cooperation in communication

05

06

07

08

09

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

SW: AZ:

why is that haven’t you been to the

SW: social security AZ: no I’m supposed to be getting money from the

SW: hm hm AZ: unemployment benefit sir because I’m entitled for this

SW: AZ: I’m since twenty years in this country you see and all the

SW: AZ: times I’m paying this na national insurance contribution

SW: AZ: I’m entitled for that uhm not only that I’m very ashamed of

SW: AZ: myself to go ehm and ask social security system you know

SW: AZ: because I wanted what is I’m entitled you see I’m so ashamed

SW: AZ: even I am not tell my own family members I’m an unemployed

SW: yah have you actually claimed social security AZ: I don’t wanted

SW: AZ: actually social security money I wanted unemployment money

SW: AZ: myself because I’m entitled for that I don’t wanted any

SW: yah AZ: this sort of thing because I will be if I go and get that

SW: AZ: money you know we are all blamed for this because these

SW: AZ: people’re living on social securiy like that its too much

SW: who said that the people in the office AZ: not in the people in the

SW: AZ: street people in the all everywhere

SW: yah I I think we better start

AZ:

SW: again really Mr Aziz now eh uhm you said you’re you are AZ:

S. K. Sarangi. S. Slembrouck 1 Non-cooperation in communication 149

24

25

26

21

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

31

38

39

40

41

42

SW: unemployed you’re getting unemployment benefit are you AZ: no sir

SW: AZ: I’m not getting thats the thing but I went there for as soon

SW: AZ: as I became unemployed I went to the office unemployment

SW: hm hm AZ: office I sign myself there sir and they said everything

SW: AZ: will be alright come back before two weeks they said then

SW: AZ: afterwards I went there sir and not much any hope

SW: erm what do

AZ:

SW: you mean you went there afterwards AZ: every week I go and find

SW: yah yah AZ: sir so I went there as usual I went there after two weeks

SW: AZ: and it was same reply come after [indistinct]

SW: you went there after only two weeks AZ: yes

SW: AZ: every week I go sir

SW: you go there every week AZ: yes sir

SW: so you went there one week after [indistinct] AZ: [indistinct] then I go

SW: AZ: another week to sign again and then 1 go another week to

SW: yeah AZ: sign again that was a rule for them sir

SW: yes I see when did you first go back and querried AZ: I no I

SW: AZ: went there again after two weeks and they told me to come

SW: AZ: back after two weeks your money will be ready then I went

S. K. Sarangi. S. Slemhrouck / Non-cooperarion in communication 150

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

58

59

60

61

SW: AZ: there there was nothing there and [indistinct]

SW: so did you go back the

AZ:

SW: week after the sign on then AZ: yes sir

SW: thats so important if

AZ: yes sir

SW: you if you don’t go and sign on you don’t get the money the AZ:

SW: following week AZ: no sir as they explained me I went exactly at

SW: AZ: time sir I had to sign myself

SW: yes but when two weeks after AZ:

SW: or one week after AZ: yes after one week also because that’s

SW: AZ: the rule of them that I’ve to go for every week to sign sir

SW: AZ: then after three weeks I went again and begged them please

SW: AZ: I’m in desperate condition I have got nothing please help us

SW: AZ: and they say when did you come to this country they thought

SW: AZ: I’m a new comer I’m just pretending myself to get some money

SW: AZ: from here see

SW: when did you come to the country AZ: I came about

SW: oh I see AZ: nineteen fifty nine sir about twenty years roughly

SW: AZ: twenty years sir

SW: yah alright so what did they say AZ: they said I’m just


62

63

64

65

SW: hm hm

AZ: pretending to get money you know just like that so I was in

SW: AZ: the queue when telling this thing people everybody in the queue

SW: AZ: they laughed at me I was so ashamed I nearly cried myself I

SW: AZ: don’t know what to do

66

67

SW: why should they laugh at you I mean

AZ: I don’t

SW: you you said that the social security thought you might AZ: know

68 SW: be pretending something why why

69

70

71

72

73

74

75

AZ: I never been to the social security

SW: why should they think that AZ: I never been to social security

SW: AZ: they wanted me to go and get money from the social security

SW: AZ: thing because I’m so ashamed I don’t want to go to social

SW: AZ: security because I’ve worked here for twenty years I’ve paid

SW: AZ: my national insurance contribution I thought I’m entitled to

SW: hm hm AZ: get unemployment benefit that’s the thing I wanted sir

SW: AZ: I don’t wanted to go I’m so ashamed

(AFTER THE INTERVIEW)

76 RI: [what has been achieved in the interview] AZ: its very difficult

77 RI: AZ: to say sir some because I’ve been through this sort of

78 RI: AZ: interview so many times you know the people sometime they

79 RI: AZ: unable to understand what I’m saying actually they don’t

152 S. K. Sarangi. S. Slembrouck / Non-cooperation in communication

80 RI: why AZ: want to understand what I’m saying actually they keep

81 RI: why did AZ: asking all sort of questions cross examination like that

82 RI: why did you feel the social worker didn’t want to understand AZ: I

83 RI: AZ: don’t know I feel something like that as soon as they see my

84 RI: AZ: face you know maybe they don’t want to understand I don’t know

85 RI: mhm AZ: what happened to them or they think I’m pretending something

86 RI: AZ: like that I don’t know I’m not sure whether he understood the

87 RI: AZ: story sir I’m not sure at all

{AFTER THE INTERVIEW)

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

RI: [what has been achieved in the interview] SW: well I wanted to

RI: SW: establish the fact of the case without being too nosy people

RI: SW: do get a bit upset if you ask questions which are too direct

RI: SW: in the beginning

RI: was it difficult to sort these facts out SW: ye’.

RI: SW: very difficult he seemed to ramble a lot uhm seemed to contradict

RI: SW: himself first he said he went back to the social security

RI: SW: after one week then after two weeks in the end I wasn’t sure

RI: SW: if he signed on the dole

97 RI: were you trying to keep it as simple

SW:


98 RI: as possible SW: yes well people do even English people get very

99 RI: SW: confused about uhm the bureaucracy uhm connected with social

100 RI: SW: security so rather than start talking to about unemployment

101 RI: SW: benefit and supplementary benefit I thought that would

102 RI: SW: confuse him so I thought I keep it simpler and talk about

103 RI: SW: social security

104 RI: so why then did you feel it was a difficult SW:

105 RI: interview SW: well he didn’t seem to know to understand what I

106 RI: SW: needed to know in order to be able to help him

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Bourdieu, Pierre, 1976. The economics of linguistic exchanges, Social Science Information 16(6):

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