The Non-Observance of Maxims in Facebook Conversations.

Abstract

Communication can simply be defined as the act of transmitting information, ideas and attitudes from one person to another which helps them develop their relationships. Nowadays, people choose social networks to communicate with each other because they believe it is an easy way to build conversations. As Grice (1975) argued that people should obey a set of maxims which he prosed (maxim of quantity, quality, manner, and relevance) in order to achieve a meaningful conversation, and since these maxims are set as rules of conversation social networking users should observe them in their interaction. However, users may fail to observe these maxims. Therefore, this study aims at investigating types of maxims that are not observed by users, how they fail to observe them, and the reasons behind that. The data were collected through an online questionnaire and by gathering students’ Facebook conversations. In analyzing and interpreting the data, descriptive quantitative and qualitative methods were used. The findings showed that Facebook users fail to observe maxims mostly by flouting a maxim, maxim of relevance is the most type of maxims that is not observed by Facebook users in their conversations, and finally there are many reasons behind non-observance of maxims in Facebook users’ conversations.