Human conversation is a cooperative achievement. Speakers rely on shared norms, strategic moves and social conventions to manage talk effectively and maintain productive, harmonious interaction. Understanding these discourse strategies is essential for analysing how informal spoken texts work.
The linguist H.P. Grice proposed that conversation is governed by the Cooperative Principle: make your contribution as required by the accepted purpose of the conversation. This principle generates four maxims:
| Maxim | Requirement | Violation Example |
|---|---|---|
| Quantity | Be as informative as required, no more | Giving an hour-long answer to a yes/no question |
| Quality | Be truthful; don’t say what you believe is false | Lying, exaggerating |
| Relation | Be relevant | Changing the subject abruptly |
| Manner | Be clear, brief and orderly | Speaking ambiguously when clarity is possible |
When speakers flout a maxim — break it obviously — they generate implicature: additional meaning beyond the literal words. For example, Nice haircut said sarcastically floats the Quality maxim to imply the opposite.
KEY TAKEAWAY: Understanding the Cooperative Principle helps explain why informal conversation often works through implication rather than explicit statement. The real meaning is often conveyed by what is not said, or by the manner in which something is said.
Adjacency pairs are two-part sequences where the first part sets up an expectation for a particular second part:
| First Part | Expected Second Part |
|---|---|
| Greeting: Hi! | Return greeting: Hey! |
| Question: What time is it? | Answer: Half past three |
| Invitation: Want to come? | Acceptance or refusal |
| Compliment: Love your jacket | Acknowledgement: Thanks! |
| Apology: Sorry about that | Acceptance: No worries |
Dispreferred responses — socially unexpected responses (e.g. refusing an invitation) — are typically marked by delay, hedging and elaborate explanation: Oh, I’d really love to, but I’ve got this thing on… The preferred response is often brief and direct.
Goffman’s and Brown & Levinson’s politeness theory proposes that speakers manage face — each person’s public self-image. Strategies include:
Positive politeness (affirming the other’s positive face):
- Paying compliments, showing interest, using first names
- Including the other: We should do this more often
- Using in-group markers and informal language
Negative politeness (respecting the other’s autonomy):
- Hedging: I was wondering if maybe you might be able to…
- Indirect requests: Is there any chance of a coffee?
- Apologising for imposing
In informal contexts, positive politeness strategies dominate because participants have a close, equal relationship and face threat is lower.
EXAM TIP: Identify whether a speaker is using positive or negative politeness and explain what this reveals about the relationship. Extensive hedging in informal speech can actually signal awkwardness or that a topic is socially sensitive.
Discourse markers are words and phrases that organise spoken language rather than carrying primary meaning:
| Function | Examples |
|---|---|
| Topic introduction | right, so, anyway |
| Topic continuation | and then, you know, like |
| Topic shift | anyway, moving on, so |
| Contrast/concession | but, though, I mean |
| Emphasis | actually, literally, honestly |
In informal speech, markers like like, you know and sort of also function as hedges (reducing commitment to an assertion) and as floor-holding devices (buying thinking time).
COMMON MISTAKE: Students sometimes describe discourse markers like like and you know as meaningless verbal fillers. In fact, they perform specific pragmatic functions: hedging, signalling shared understanding, buying processing time, and managing the pace of the interaction.
APPLICATION: In SAC or exam analysis, go beyond simply identifying discourse markers. Explain how they manage the interaction: The repeated use of ‘you know’ by the speaker functions as a hedge, reducing the force of a potentially face-threatening assertion, while also inviting the listener to affirm shared understanding.
VCAA FOCUS: VCAA examiners expect students to explain the pragmatic function of discourse strategies, not just identify them. Always answer the question: what is this strategy achieving for the speakers in this particular interaction?
