Maxim

Quantity

Quality

Relation/Relevance

Manner

Be perspicuous:

• Avoid obscurity of expression.
• Avoid ambiguity.
• [Page 492]Be brief.
• Be orderly. (Grice, 1975)

A set of politeness maxims that account for a broader range of humor phenomena was postulated by Leech:

Tact

Generosity

Minimize benefit to self. Maximize cost to self.

Approbation

Modesty

Agreement

Sympathy

Everyone occasionally behaves in ways that are inconsistent with (fail to fulfill, violate, infringe) one or more of these maxims. Grice describes four types of such instances: (1) unostentatious violation (e.g., misleading), (2) opting out (when the speaker indicates that he or she cannot obey the maxims for some reasons), (3) clashing (when the speaker is unable to fulfill a maxim without violating another), and (4) flouting (when a patent violation of a maxim urges the hearer to discover an implicit meaning conveyed by the speaker). Hyperbole and irony flout the first quality maxim, according to Grice.

Leech argues that the relationships between illocutionary goals and social goals can be competitive, convivial, collaborative, or conflictive. These four situations are parallel to the possible relationships between Grice’s and Leech’s maxims. Conflictive situations are greatly sensitive to humor. Clashes between Gricean and Leechian maxims may be humorous.

People sometimes fail to follow the maxims unintentionally. Non-native speakers, for example, may not always be aware of the different meanings and the socially adequate use of words they employ. Helen Spencer-Oatey recalls a case when she, in her early 50s, helped a foreign student of low proficiency in English find his way across London. On reaching the train, the young man tried to express his gratitude by saying, “Thank you very much. You are a very kind old lady,” a quite paradoxical “compliment” (according to the approbation maxims) to which she reacted, understandably, with mixed emotions. Public notices posted to inform an international audience are common sources of ambiguity, such as the following advertisement for donkey rides somewhere outside the English-speaking countries: “Would you like to ride on your own ass?” Ambiguous statements accidentally made by politicians quickly become widely known via traditional media and Internet folklore.

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