A Study on Conversational Implicature in Modern Family from the Perspective of the Cooperative Principle
【】The American linguistic philosopher Grice proposed the import ant “Conversational Implicature Theory” in the lecture at Harvard University in 1967， and its related theories reveal language norms to guide the two sides of conversation in the process of communication. It contains a series of maxims which help both sides of the conversation to accomplish the dialogue smoothly. So the Cooperative Principle is one of the important guides for people’s speech communication. Under the guidance of CP，implicating meaning comes out， Grice calls that Conversational Implicature （CI）， when speakers violate the maxims of CP on purpose. CP， as a discipline mediating between linguistics and audiovisual criticisms， has gathered more attention in recent years from scholars in the area of audiovisual criticism as well as audiovisual studies. Application has been wider and wider. Through the analysis of dialogues between characters in the work and discussion about the comprehension of the whole meaning in
communications， the listeners could get through the literal meaning to the deeper intention. So the real intention of the speaker violating the Cooperative Principle can be found and the sense of humor can be shown.
The thesis aims to study the Conversational Implicature from the perspective of Grice’s Cooperative Principle. His theory has been respected by scholars and made great contributions to both Chinese and English pragmatics. This thesis tried to apply Grice’s Cooperative Principle to analysis the work Modern Family. Based on the conversation of the work， the implied meaning can be known and the sense of humor also can be shown.
1. Grice’s Cooperative Principle
American linguistic philosopher Grice put forward the theory “Cooperative Principle” in the late 1960s in his article “logic and conversation”. Cooperative Principle have four maxims and each maxim still has several
sub-maxims.
（1） The quantity maxim： Make your contribution as informative as is required（for the current purposes of the exchange）； Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
（2） The quality maxim：Don’t say what you believe to be false；Don’t say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
（3） The related maxim： Be relevant.
（4） The manner maxim： Avoid the obscurity of expression； Avoid ambiguity； Be brief（avoid prolixity）；Be orderly. These maxims show how the participants cooperate with each other： the speaker tries to tell the reality； has content and contacts； to be clear and avoid being ambiguous； to be brief and ordered； also the hearer needs to use the same criterion to understand the words. The point to produce the Conversational Implicature lays on the attitude that both sides hold in the immediate communication.
2. Applications to the Cooperative Principle in Modern Family
The Modern Family focus on three America families， one camera hidden record the daily life. The work adopted pseudo documentary form and most of the spots recorded by handheld video cameras. With the unique perspective， three families’ emotional life and daily life shows to us. The Modern Family fashion has gone all over America and is now
going over China. In the last two years，“Modern Family” has ridden timely premises like this to surging viewership and six Emmys， including outstanding comedy series. It has both mystic plots and a plenty of fantastic moments. While among all those stories and conversations that happened among three families， there are many conversations going against the Cooperative Principle proposed by Grice. This issue will be discussed in the following part.
Example 1
Mitchell：“I’m sorry. I know how it feels to have him stick his nose where it doesn’t belong.”
Phil：“No biggie. That’s just Jay being Jay.”
Actually，Mitchell is Claire’s brother. Jay is their father but he always have a talk ignoring others feel. Mitchell understand him so much that console Phil’s answer is disjunctive question. It’s an obvious violation of the Quantity Maxims. On the surface，the sentence doesn’t offer much available information. But from the perspective of deep， it can express that Jay is just the guy who like to point a finger at others. The Conversational Implicature makes us understand Jay’s character better and shows Phil’s feeling that want to please Jay but can do nothing.
Example 2
Mitchell：“I can’t. That…that orphanage was all women. Maybe she just...She can’t fall asleep， unless she feels a woman’s shape.”
Cameron：“I guess that’s possible.”
Mitchell and Cameron adopted a Vietnamese baby Lily just now and she is not sleeping in the plane. Cameron don’t k now why and also hurried. In daily life， when we have not enough envidence，we also said “Maybe it is…” or “I am not sure，but…”. So we can infer that Cameron is loving father. It’s an obvious violation of the quality Maxims. Example 3
Claire：“You don’t stand near the car when you get gas？”
Phil：“Yep， but， uh， I went inside to get a soda because I was thirsty，and if I had a sod I wouldn’t be thirsty anymore， so I bought one， and then I drank it all right there which is why I don’t have the can.”
Claire caught Phil ride others bike and want to stole it and in the dialogue， Claire want to ask him why he stay away from the car when fueling it. But Phil say something that have nothing with the topic. He is afraid of her and
doesn’t want she know. It’s an obvious violation of the relation Maxims.
Example 4
Claire：“Last month，it was the thermostat.”
Phil：“The snowflake button makes it cold， cold，cold. Set temperature makes it hold， hold， hold， the little flame makes it...”
In the dialogue，Phil’s answer is not brief like Clair expected. It’s so long that Clair think he was laughing at her who can’t understand high technology. So the humorous effect was shown. The conversation broke the third rule of manner maxims，that is ，be brief.
3. Summary
Through a detailed analysis of the dialogues in Modern Family， we have a lot of findings. The implied or hidden meaning of the dialogues can be inferred on the basis of the conventional meaning of words together with the context. The characters in the work can be recognized， such as their inner feelings reflected like sadness， doubt， anger or hesitation. With the help of the Cooperative Principle，the audience can understand and enjoy the work much better. Besides， it can reaffirm and enrich Gr ice’s Cooperative
principle. What’s more， in the thesis， the conversation observe the basic rules，especially the “cooperative principle”， to ensure that the conversation can go on smoothly. When one side of the principle doesn’t want to lie，conversational implicature was produced. Conversational implicature is a kind of meaning， which is beyond the sentence itself. Generally speaking， people violate the maxims so that produce conversational implicature. They want to express their real mind implicitly. At the same time， the features of conversational implicature enrich the conversation. They make the communication more humorous and diversified. So the observance and violation about the cooperative principle are all necessary to everyone to understand. Although there are a lot of findings， the limitations of the study can’t be ignored. Because the thesis just made a tentative study from the perspective of CP， especially from violations of sub-maxims of CP. There are three limitations. The material of this study is limited to the application to the work， which might not be convincing in all kinds of work materials. Human’s communication occurs in different fields， so there are a lot of angles to
analyze， such as psychological， societal and cognitive points of view.
?⒖嘉南祝?
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