Universidad de Guadalajara

Maestría en Enseñanza del Inglés como Lengua Extranjera

Module II: Linguistic Description For Foreign Language
Teaching

Reflection 4-2 Cooperative

Principle

Tutor’s Name: Dra. María Luisa Arias Moreno

Name: Humberto Marino Ramírez

E-mail: humber_marino@hotmail.com

April 21st, 2014

 Reflection 4.2
Reflection 4.2
Question: Grice emphasizes the word ‘reasonable’ as he describes his consideration of the
cooperative principle and his maxims as a kind of contract. Would the cooperative principle
and the maxims be treated as ‘reasonable’ in all societies and all cultures? Do all the maxims
apply in the Mexican culture? How would that affect your teaching if you want your Mexican
EFL students to perform effectively if involved in a situation in a place where English is
spoken?

I think that that the cooperative principle is reasonable in all cultures because people can
always make a choice whether to follow it or not. For example if a certain culture
emphasizes the quality principle, any individual from that society can decide to do (or not
to do) what certain culture may indicate appropriate: tell the truth. People are expected to
follow the rule but they can still decide what to do.

Do all cultures follow the Cooperative Principle in the same way? Keenan (2000) gives
good ideas about this matter: “Differences between societies, if there are any, are more
likely to be differences in specification of domains in which the maxim is expected to hold
and differences in the degree to which members are expected to conform to this maxim. In
some societies, meeting the informational needs of a conversational partner may be
relatively unmarked or routine behavior. In other societies, meeting another’s informational
needs may be relatively unexpected or marked behavior” Every culture decides to which
extent they adhere to the Cooperative Principle and in what circumstances. There are
some cultures that decide not to give all the information to people they barely know and
there are other cultures that it is usual for people to tell a lot of information.

What about Mexican culture? Do Mexicans follow the cooperative principle? Haviland
mentions a legal dispute between speakers of Tzotzil (a Mexican Indian language spoken
in highland Chiapas ). Such disputes according to Haviland are characterized by
impoliteness, lack of turn taking and people trying to out-shout one another. This author
says that quarrelling is a form of weak cooperation between the speakers but it is still a
cooperative effort.

From my point of view, Mexicans tend to show off and whatever they say has the purpose
to have a good impression on the hearer, I think this stems from fear that people will deem
them incompetent. Therefore they brag about themselves and say things that are not true
thus violating the quality maxim in the cooperative principle. For the same purpose of
creating a good image the Mexican will not follow the quantity and relation principles and
will speak lots to let other people know that he is an expert in the matter that is being
discussed. He will also abstain from the Manner principle because he tends to be a bit
selfish and will not check if what he said might be ambiguous for the listener.

To prevent my students from showing this kind of behavior in another culture I can teach
them values like justice, honesty, truth, dignity and democracy. I can introduce this topic
when I speak about personality and character traits like: adaptable, cheerful, clean,
compassionate, focused, optimistic, patient, organized, sociable. I will tell them that a
good way to show these positive characteristics is to follow the cooperative principle where
they need to show patience to produce speech which the listener will understand properly.
Another good idea is to show my students videos with biographies of famous people and
pay special interest to how they communicate with other people. I also think that any time
is perfect to teach them these values, for example if I am teaching second conditional I can
make sentences like: “If I was the President I would seek the well-being of the people
instead of my own”, or “I will tell the truth and speak only the necessary whenever I talk to
other people.”

Grice’s cooperative principle is not universal to every culture, what it is universal is that
cultures use it in different forms. The Mexican culture for example, even in quarrelling and
shouting, shows cooperation between speakers to a mutual understanding. I can use my
place as a teacher to model values to my students that will help them have a better
communication by following Grice’s maxims of telling the truth and speaking just what is
required, I can do this by showing videos of civilized conversations and by using example
sentences that promote the cooperative principle.
Bibliografía
Finegan, E. (2008). Language, it's structure and use. USA: Thomson Wadsworth.

Haviland, J. (1997). Shouts, shrieks and shots: Unruly political conversations in indigenous Chiapas.

Keenan, E. O. (s.f.). The Universality of Conversational Postulates. En A. Kasher, Pragmatics: Critical

Concepts (págs. 217-218). London: Routledge.

Yule, G. (1996). Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.