H. P. Grice, in his theory of conversational impli Essays

H. P. Grice, in his theory of conversational implicature, demonstrated the heavy reliance of linguistic communication on contextual cues (Grice, 1975). In "Logic and Conversation" (1975), he states, "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." This Cooperative Principle (CP) asserts that participants in a conversation will tailor their contributions to the conversation to further its purpose. Most conversations do follow the cooperative principle in that the speaker wants to convey her intention and the listener wants to understand the speaker's intention. Situations in which the cooperative principle is not in place are more unusual or contrived. The legal system in the United States can create situations in which participants of a conversation are not operating under the CP. While the court's purpose is ostensibly to discover truth and serve justice , the prosecution and defense are clearly at odds in the purpose of their utterances. In this essay, I will explore ways in which lawyers, witnesses, law enforcement officials and suspects exploit the tension between the artificial environment of the courtroom with its strictly defined rules and the expected norms of conversation for their own ends. The first example in which attorneys and witnesses manipulate expectations is through implicature. Grice defined the concept of an "implicature" as something different from the literal meaning of the sentences uttered that occurs when participants of a conversation are observing the CP. Grice defined four basic rules falling under the Cooperative Principle: 1. Maxim of Quality - Be truthful 2. Maxim of Quantity - Say no more nor no less than is required 3. Maxim of Relevance - Be relevant 4. Maxim of Manner - Be clear and concise He argued that while interlocutors generally follow these maxims during a convers ation, they occasionally deliberately violate them while still obeying the CP. The result of these violations can be an implicature (Grice, 1975). For example, when a patient asks a doctor who is examining him, "How are the reflexes in my legs?", if the doctor says, "Well, the reflexes in your right leg are good," the doctor is violating the Maxim of Quantity. She answers the questions for only one of the patient's legs. However, because the patient believes that the doctor is operating under the CP and would not violate the maxim unnecessarily, he can infer that by mentioning only one leg, the doctor is implying that the left leg's reflexes are not good. We frequently use implicature in the course of everyday conversation for various purposes - in the example above, the implicature allows for brevity. Grice mentions that in order for an implicature to occur, the CP must be in place, the speaker must intend to convey the implication, and the listener must be capable of working out the implication. Implicatures in cooperative conversation are so common in everyday speech that most people understand them with very little effort. Very few situations outside the courtroom do not abide by the cooperative principle. Therefore, jurors and witnesses who are unused to the rules of language in a courtroom may not be used to considering only the literal meaning of the utterance as may be required during testimony. They may assume that all conversational participants are engaged in a cooperative endeavor, over-generating implicatures. Furthermore, assumptions that the CP is in place can also lead to making incorrect assumptions that a verbal crime such as bribery, solicitation or perjury has taken place when observing evidence on transcripts or audio tapes, or while listening to testimony. The assumption by the jury that the CP is in place allows attorneys and witnesses to exploit it. How, then, can these misinterpretations be corrected? There are at least three important steps. First, one must correctly identify which contextual markers are relevant to the meaning of the utterance. Second, one must know the typical conversational strategies employed by attorneys in the court and law enforcement officials in a sting operation to elicit confessions. Finally, and most obviously, one must consider the circumstances that brought the defendant to trial. Speech act theory helps us greatly with the first step. Aside