英语论文网

2. Political Euphemisms and Cooperative Principle
2.1 Cooperative Principle
In 1967, P.Grice, a philosopher of America, proposed “Cooperative Principle” which is a sketchy theory about pragmatics. He defines “Cooperative Principle” as follows: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage that it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. (He Ziran, 2003:65)
In discussing the Cooperative Principle, Grice subdivides this general principle into more detailed and explicit maxims. There are four maxims: Quantity Maxim, Quality Maxim, Relevant Maxim, and Manner Maxim. According to Grice, the content of each maxim is as follows:
A. Quantity Maxim:
a). Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purpose of the exchange).
b). Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
B. Quality Maxim:
Try to make your contribution one that is true:
a). Do not say what you believe to be false.
b). Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
C. Relevant Maxim:
Be relevant.
D. Manner Maxim:
Be perspicuous:
a). Avoid obscurity of expression.
b). Avoid ambiguity.
c). Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
d). Be orderly.
(He Ziran, 2003:67)
On balance, the four maxims require that the conversation between people should be informative enough, be true, be relevant, and be perspicuous.
But we discover that political euphemisms violate the four maxims of Cooperative Principle when we take the four maxims into political language environment. The objective of officers and government is to defend their status of domination and safeguard their own interests.

2.2 Quantity Maxim
Quantity Maxim requires that your contribution should be informative enough, but not more informative than required. In some measure, political euphemisms violate this maxim. For getting the best result, officier and politicians use vague language to extend scope of information. In this way, speaker’s purpose can be archived.
A typical example is the words spoken by Defense Secretary of the U.S. Donald H.Rumsfeld in 2003 when he talked about s the nuclear weapon in Iraq. He said “Reports that say something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns, there are things we known we known. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are something we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”(From:https://www.saidwhat.co.uk/quotes/political/donald_rumsfeld/
reports_that_say_that_something_hasnt_2905) Rumsfeld use these words like “known knowns”, “known unknowns”, and “unknown unknowns” instead of those things that official cloud not speaks out or about national interest. The public may not understand what his really means. The use of these words and phrases keep him from being embarrassed. He deliberately violates the quantity maxim and successfully hides what others want to know. We can see that these political euphemisms violate Quantity Maxim of Cooperative Principle.

2.3 Quality Maxim
According to Quality Maxim, what speakers say should true, and what he or she says is not false or does not lack adequate evidence. Politicians are usually liers. They are used to space in an indirect way and what they talk are usually far from truth. T本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。