Glossary of Linguistic Terms

Cooperative Principle

Definition: 

The cooperative principle is a principle of conversation that was proposed by Grice 1975, stating that participants expect that each will make a “conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange.”

Discussion: 

The cooperative principle, along with the conversational maxims, partly accounts for conversational implicatures. Participants assume that a speaker is being cooperative, and thus they make conversational implicatures about what is said.

Examples: 

(English)

  • When a speaker makes an apparently uninformative remark such as “War is war,” the addressee assumes that the speaker is being cooperative and looks for the implicature the speaker is making.
Source: 
45–46, 49–50
101–104, 110–114

Glossary Hierarchy