not in operation anymore. Criticism Grice's theory is often disputed by arguing that cooperative conversation, like most social behaviour, is culturally determined, and therefore the Gricean maxims and the cooperative principle do not universally apply because of cultural differences. Keenan (1976) claims, for example, that the Malagasy people follow a completely opposite cooperative principle to achieve conversational cooperation. In their culture, speakers are reluctant to share information and flout the maxim of quantity by evading direct questions and replying on incomplete answers because of the risk of losing face by committing oneself to the truth of the information, as well as the fact that having information is a form of prestige. To push back on this point, Harnish (1976) points out that Grice only claims his maxims hold in conversations where the cooperative principle is in effect. The Malagasy speakers choose not to be cooperative, valuing the prestige of information ownership more highly. (It could also be said in this case that this is a less cooperative communication system, since less information is shared.) Some argue that the maxims are vague. This may explain the criticism that the Gricean maxims can easily be misinterpreted to be a guideline for etiquette, instructing speakers on how to be moral, polite conversationalists. However, the Gricean maxims, despite their wording, are only meant to describe the commonly accepted traits of successful cooperative communication. Geoffrey Leech introduced the politeness maxims: tact, generosity, approbation, modesty, agreement, and sympathy. It has also been noted by relevance theorists that conversational implicatures can arise in uncooperative situations, which cannot be accounted for in Grice's framework. For example, assume that A and B are planning a holiday in France and A suggests they visit their old acquaintance Gérard; and further, that B knows where Gérard lives, and A knows that B knows. The following dialogue ensues: A: Where does Gérard live? B: Somewhere in the South of France. This is understood by A as B not wanting to say where exactly Gérard lives, precisely because B is not following the cooperative principle. See also Information manipulation theory Lexical entrainment Politeness theory Question under discussion Relevance theory References Bibliography Grice, Paul (1975). "Logic and Conversation." Pp. 41–58 in Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts, edited by P. Cole and J. J. Morgan. New York, NY: Academic Press. External links Argues that the Gricean maxims are too vague to be useful for