Gricean Self-Test

1. What Gricean maxim is involved if someone is accused of committing perjury?

choose answer ... quality quantity relation manner

2. What are the main two Gricean maxims involved if someone is said to have 'verbal diarrhoea (you have to get them both to get the mark!)?

choose answer ... quality & quantity quantity & relation relation & manner quantity & manner

3. What Gricean maxim is mainly involved if someone is accused of not keeping to the subject?

choose answer ... quality quantity relation manner

4. What Gricean maxim is mainly involved if someone is accused of saying something vaguely or imprecisely?

choose answer ... quality quantity relation manner

5. If you flout a Gricean maxim, which adverb below best describes the way in which you break it?

choose answer ... covertly angrily flagrantly eloquently

6. If you violate a Gricean maxim, which adverb below best describes the way in which you break it?

choose answer ... covertly angrily flagrantly eloquently

7. When, in Devotions, 17, John Donne said 'No man is an island', what Gricean maxim was he flouting?

choose answer ... quality quantity relation manner

8. When, in The Acts of the Apostles, 21, 5, St Paul, in referring to Tarsus, said that he was 'a citizen of no mean city', what Gricean maxim was he flouting?

choose answer ... quality quantity relation manner

9. Look at the following dialogue. What maxim does B flout and what implicatuire follows from it (you have to get both questions right to get the mark!).

A: How is it going with your new child?
B: Well, babies are babies.

The maxim flouted is: choose answer ... quality quantity relation manner

The implicature that flows from it is: choose answer ... It is too early to say Things are going well Things are not going well We've run out of safety pins

10. Look at the following dialogue. What is the main maxim that B flouts and what implicature follows from it (you have to get both questions right to get the mark).

A: How did you get on with your seminar preparation this week?
B: Well, I couldn't get any books out of the library.

The maxim flouted is: choose answer ... quality quantity relation manner

The implicature that flows from it is: choose answer ... I found the work difficult I haven't done the work The work was boring I lost the handout with the task on it

Score:

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