This example illustrates the difficulties at the heart of providing relevance in an interpreted dialogue and demonstrates the fact that two listeners interpretations of comments can be very different. Making your contribution as informative as required for the current purposes of exchange without becoming superfluous is Grice s recipe for success if you want to win friends and keep conversation partners. This is also known as the Maxim of Quantity. Still in the courtroom, we find an Irish Sign Language Interpreter at work with a Deaf defendant in the dock. The Deaf defendant shakes his head and signs NO .
Explanations are in vain.
The interpreter HAS been as informative as required to ensure the understanding of the defendant in his native language. She has not been more informative than the L1 speaker. The Maxim of Quality states that we should try to make our contributions truthful. Lets try another scenario to test Grice s hypothesis. Imagine a doctors surgery.