.

The General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH)

This theory was presented by victor Raskin and Salvatore Attardo in 1991 as an extension to

the SSTH that was presented by Raskin in 1985 to account for verbal humor. I used this theory

to analyze all the collected texts according to the six parameters of this theory: Script

opposition, Logical Mechanism, Target, Situation, Narrative strategies, Language. This theory is

discussed in some detail in the previous chapter (Section 2.5.3).

3.3.2. The Cooperative Principle (CP)

This Principle was proposed by Paul Grice in1975 to explore interpersonal communication.

He first introduced this principle and its main tenets in his article "Logic and Conversation'' that

was later published in his book Studies in the Way of Words. In this article, he aimed at

describing the nature of interpersonal communication, and, he explained that any talk exchange

should be harmonious and meaningful: This discourse should have a purpose and an aim and

follow certain rules. These rules require both of the participants to follow a general principle

which he calls the Cooperative Principle (CP) that the participants should follow in their

communication to have a purpose and meaning for their discourse. He explained it this principle

as follows:

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 at least a mutually accepted direction. ( 1989, p. 26)

He points out that there are four categories of maxims under this general principle: the

quantity maxim, the quality maxim, the relation maxim, and the manner maxim. These four

maxims and their requirements determine the ways which keep the communication meaningful.
The first three maxims have to do with the contents of the texts. They demonstrate the

requirements for successful content in an informative communication. In contrast, the last maxim

demonstrates how to provide these contents in a meaningful manner. It describes the successful

mode of communicative, cooperative exchange. Each of these maxims is discussed in some

detail below.

3.3.2.1. The Maxim of Quantity

This maxim relates to the quantity of information that is presented. This maxim has two

main sub maxims:

1 Make your contribution as informative as is required( for the current purpose of the

exchange)
2 Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. ( Grice, 1975, p.26)

Over-informativeness is a feature that is not favorable in any successful communication. The

participants should abide by the frames of their speech since being over informative will result in

raising other issues.

3.3.2.2. The Maxim of Quality

This maxim has one super maxim and two sub-maxims. The super maxim states that the

speaker should "try to make [his/her] contribution one that is true''. The two sub-maxims are:

1 Do not say what you believe to be false.

2 Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. (Grice, 1975, p. 27)

This maxim stipulates that the speaker should provide true information.

3.3.2.3. The Maxim of Relation

 This maxim requires the participants to "be relevant'' (Grice, 1975, p. 27) to the topic of

their communication and if anyone of them is trying to change the topic he/she should inform the

other participant. This adherence to the topic of the exchange is related to their '' common

immediate aim" (Grice, 1975, p.29) since their contributions to the discourse is mutually

dependent. Additionally, according to this maxim, the participants' verbal contribution should be

relevant to the purpose of the talk in which they are engaged, or more precisely to the context

and situation in which the utterance occurs'' (Thomas, 1995, p.70).

3.3.2.4. The Maxim of Manner

This category describes the how-part of the talk. It is not related to the content of what is

being said but to how what is being said is said. This category includes the super maxim- ''Be

Perspicuous''-and four sub- maxims:

1 Avoid obscurity
2 Avoid ambiguity
3 Be brief ( avoid unnecessary prolixity)
4 Be orderly. (Grice, 1975, p. 27)

According to these conditions imposed by these maxims, the participants should be clear

and cooperative in their communication. They should omit any pointless item; and, they should

use ordered information. However, these rules are not ones that every person should be taught to

comply with but these are subconsciously acquired. Grice (1989) argues that people learn to

conform to these maxims in their early stage of language acquisition'' and that they stick to this

linguistic habit because telling the truth is most acceptable than inventing lies ( p. 29).

However, one should highlight that these rules are not reducing the communicative

competence of the participants by imposing certain rules upon them. They are not also restricting
their freedom. In contrast, theses maxims help the participants to have a meaningful, cooperative

discourse. They, as Cutting (2002) points out, help the participants to communicate efficiently:

all the speaker has to do is to utter a sentence only one interpretation of which is compatible with

the assumption that she is obeying the cooperative principle and maxims (p. 130).

This Cooperative Principle is widely discussed by various scholars who aimed at highlighting

its significance. Palmer (1976), for instance, demonstrated that Grice noted that there is a

general Cooperative Principle (CP) between speaker and hearer, which, roughly, controls the

way in which a conversation may proceed'' ( p. 173). Grices attempt, as Lycan (2008) explains,

strives to uncover the mechanisms of conversation and social norms that govern cooperative

conversations (p. 158). Moreover, Kearns (2000) argues that Grice wants to determine the

interplay between what a speaker actually said and certain broad rules, shared by speakers and

hearers, which govern communication'' ( p. 266). Moreover, Stainton (1996) summarizes Grices

Cooperative Principle and its sub-principles in the following Figure (1). He shows that the CP

can be put forth as follows:

The Cooperative Principle for Communication:

(a) Say what's required

(b) Say it when and how it's required.

Figure 2: The questions of the cooperative principle (1996, p. 169)

In fact, these are the four categories that Grice concludes from his examination of cooperative

communication. However, he also points out that these maxims are not the only ones used by the

participants but there are other maxims that the participants may observe in their discourse, such

as the Be polite maxim and other social, aesthetic, and moral maxims. He points out that the

participants often observe these Gricean maxims in order to have effective exchange of

information. The cooperative principle has some characteristics that the participants should

adhere to. Three features are described by Grice as follows: a) they should have some common

immediate aim; b) their contributions should be interdependent; and, c) the style should be

appropriate. (Grice, 1989, p. 29)

3.3.2.5. Non-observance of CP's Maxims

Grice (1975) also notes that not all interpersonal communications follow these maxims or

rules; however, the participants sometimes break these rules. For example, they do not give the

required information or sometimes they speak about things they do not have evidence for, or they

mention irrelevant information. Therefore, he introduces the idea of breaking these rules. He

presents four examples of the participants' transgression of these maxims. They may be violate

by disregarding this maxim; they may also opt out from the requirement of these maxims by

choosing not to be part of this cooperative activity or stop being involved in it; they may face a

clash between complying to one maxim at the expense of another; and they may flout a maxim

by intentionally not obeying its requirement and this triggers what is known as implicature or

implied meaning:

1 He may quietly and ostentatiously violate a maxim; if so, in some cases he will be liable

to mislead.
2 He may opt out from the operation both of the maxim and of the CP; he may say,

indicate, or allow it to become plain that he is unwilling to cooperate in the way the

maxim requires.
3 He may be faced by a clash: he may be unable, for example, to fulfill the first maxim of

Quantity without violating the Quality maxim.

4 He may flout a maxim; he may blatantly fail to fulfill it. This situation is one that

characteristically gives rise to a conversational implicature; and when a conversational

implicature is generated in this way, a maxim is said to be exploited. ( Grice,1989, p. 29)

When a speaker breaks a maxim, the hearer struggle to find a meaningful interpretation to the

violating contribution since he/she assumes the other participant to follow the cooperative

maxims. This challenging task of finding a sense leads to what Grice calls " implicature" since

the explicit meaning of the contribution is senseless since s/he assumes the cooperative principle
to be in operation, as Grundy (1995) points out, to break a maxim is the prototypical way of

conveying implicit meaning (p.41).

Grice (1975) distinguishes between what a speaker said and what that speaker implicated.

What is said is (roughly) the literal meaning of the utterance in the context. By contrast, what is

implicated is what the speaker meansabove and beyond the literal meaning. This difference is

also known as the differentiation between ''implicature and explicature'' (Stainton, 1996, pp. 167-

168). It is also known as the difference between the sentence meaning and the speaker's meaing (

Miller, 2007, p. 248). However, where does implicature come from? How do speakers, in

speaking, manage to create implicatures? How can they mean more than they say? Grice thinks

that implicatures are "essentially connected with certain general features of discourse" (1989, p.

26). He identifies one feature of discourse in particular that gives rise to implicatures:

disconnected remarks.

Grice presents two different types of implicatures: the conventional and the conversational

implicatures. The first is detected from the person's tacit knowledge of language such as using

idioms and phrasal verbs for example. It is conventional because it is not related to the rules of

the talk and it is related to the linguistic items (Grundy, 1995, p. 47). In other words, it is related

to "particular linguistic expressions, and conversational implicatures are those which must be

inferred and for which contextual information is crucial'' (Cruse, 2006, p. 85). This type of

implicature has the same implication no matter what the context is since it is related to the

meanings of the linguistic items.

On the contrary, the conversational implicature is usually generated by the infringement of the

Cooperative Principle and its attendant maxims. It is generated directly by the speaker,

depending on the context, as Cruse points out "Conversational implicatures are those which must
be inferred and for which contextual information is crucial''. Since it depends upon the context,

Thomas (1995) demonstrated that implicature may or may not be understood (p. 58). He also

argued that the same expressed meaning could have different implications on different occasions.

To illustrate this, I chose an example from Cruses (2000) book Meaning in Language:

1 A: Have you cleared the table and washed the dishes?

B: Ive cleared the table.

2 A: Am I in time for supper?

B: Ive cleared the table. (p. 349)

In the first example speaker Bs implication is that s/he has cleared the table but has not washed

the dishes, while in the second example speaker Bs implication is that speaker A is late for

dinner.

Numerous scholars who attempted to apply conversational maxims to humorous texts

extensively investigate the relationship between the CP and humor. Scholars such as Grice

(1975), Raskin (1985), Attardo (1994; 1996; 2001; 2008; 2009; 2011), Vandaele (1999), Ross

(1998) and Ermida (2008) argued that humorous texts did not conform to the CP and its maxims.

These texts donot usually obey these cooperative maxims. Moreover, the flouting of these

maxims in these texts is a fruitful source of humor. However, they assert that these humorous

texts are different from other texts that transgress the cooperative maxims.

They have emphasized that the flouting of the conversational maxims is essential in the

generation of humor in various texts. For example, Ermida (2008) observes that the comic

narrative emerges from ''violating and flouting the cooperative maxims'' (p. 148). Dornerus
(2005) in his analysis of two humorous TV shows demonstrates that the relevance maxim is the

most frequently violated maxim to create humor, and then comes the maxim of manner, then the

maxim of quantity, and the least broken is the maxim of quality. (2005, pp. 20-21). Moreover,

Attardo (1994) discusses the relations between the cooperative principle and humorous texts via

discussing two main issues: the communicative nature of the humorous texts and the implicit

information of these texts. He thinks that ''the idea of humor as a violation to the maxims was not

a novelty since Grice himself had used humorous examples'' ( p. 205). He also presented various

humorous examples which infringe on the maxims of communication and goes to the extent of

saying that "All jokes involve violation of one or more of Grices maxims (Attardo, 2008, p.

201).