1. The principle of Truth
2. The principle of Information
3. The principle of Relevance
4. The principle of Clarity
As a character Sheldon seems to be completely unable to respond to these four conversational maxims derived from the concept of implicature. In three scenarios the explicitly stated text is not the intended meaning when someone else is saying it. In one scenario, when he is speaking, the other characters in the scene decide to give another meaning to his words in order to amuse themselves.
This not only is a perfect illustration of how important understanding the implications of our speech truly is but it is also really amusing. It is fascinating that since the origination of the pun the implications of statements have become an intrinsic part of comedy. Now that we have moved into the internet age we are able to give further rein to implied versus literal meaning in everything from short scripted videos like the above to memes and blogs.
Enjoy the rabbit hole!
~ Sarah
I love Sheldon's character, and actually as I was reading the chapter I thought of the many times he doesn't follow the maxims. It's interesting how we just accept the maxims as the "correct" way to speak without even thinking about it.
ReplyDeleteThis was very interesting to watch. I did not really understand the Grice's maxims really so this helped for four of them. Thanks for the visual example. I didn't know BBT was so funny. Ahaha.
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