ISSN 1799-2591

Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 2, No. 12, pp. 2619-2623, December 2012
© 2012 ACADEMY PUBLISHER Manufactured in Finland. doi:10.4304/tpls.2.12.2619-
2623

A Study of Principle of Conversation in


Advertising Language
Fang Liu
Changchun University of Science and Technology, Changchun, China
Email: [email protected]

Abstract—Principle of Conversation includes Grice’s Cooperative Principle (CP) and Leech’s Politeness
Principle (PP). Advertising language can produce conversational implicatures and exert stronger persuasive
effect by observing and violating the Cooperative Principle. At the same time, some public service
advertisements comply with the Politeness Principle. The paper offers a wider way for advertising designers to
create excellent advertisements and also make them pay attention to some problems existing in ads. On the
other hand, it is also of great help for consumers to understand the implied meaning of advertisements and
avoid being tempted into buying some poor quality products by some deceptive advertising.

Index Terms—the Cooperative Principle, the Politeness Principle, advertising language, conversational
implicature, influencing factors

I. INTRODUCTION
In modern society, advertising has invaded every aspect of our life. It has exerted great impact on modern people’s
lifestyles. We are surrounded by various kinds of advertisements. Whenever we open a newspaper or a magazine, turn
on the TV or the radio, or look at the billboards in subways or on buildings, we are exposed to various advertisements.
Since advertisements have penetrated our lives deeply, studies on it have been carried on before and more attention on it
also appears necessary. As a special form of communication, most commercial advertisements are actually a kind of
persuasive speech act with an aim to persuade consumers into buying or accepting certain product or service. To achieve
this purpose, advertisers frequently employ strategies and skills in advertising language. Researches show that people
pay attention to what interests them and ignore what doesn’t. In order to arouse people’s attention, advertisements
express the ideas indirectly by applying Principle of Conversation, which leads to conversational implicature.
Principle of Conversation includes Grice’s Cooperative Principle (CP) and Leech’s Politeness Principle (PP). A
philosopher and logician, Paul Grice made an attempt to explain the course of natural conversation, in which implied
messages are frequently involved. His idea is that in making conversation, the participants must first of all be willing to
cooperate; otherwise, it would not be possible for them to carry on the talk. This general principle is called the
Cooperative Principle, abbreviated as CP. There are four maxims under this general principle: the maxim of quantity,
the maxim of quality, the maxim of relation and the maxim of manner (Dai&He, 2010). Based on the Cooperative
Principle, the paper analyzes advertisements. Advertising language can produce conversational implicatures by violating
the maxims of the Cooperative Principle. Herbert Paul Grice (1967) originally suggested the theory of conversational
implicature. The term “implicature” is used by Grice to account for what a speaker can imply, suggest, or mean, as
distinguished from what the speaker literally says. A conversational implicature is something which is implied in
conversation, that is, something which is left implicit in actual language usage. Grice coined the term implicature. And
he explored the question how people manage to convey implicature, which is not explicitly expressed (Hu, 2006,
P.191). In certain cases, we are dealing with conversational implicature. Somebody may think the advertisers follow the
maxims of the Cooperative Principle. But the fact is not like that, for they make ads just in the opposite way. People can
find that the ads in any newspaper or magazine, a poster or a billboard anywhere in town flout at least one maxim. By
doing so, advertisers can compete for consumers’ attention.
Apart from the Cooperative Principle, which is taken as the general guidelines to successful human communication,
there are other principles guiding speech acts, of which the Politeness Principle (PP) draws most attention from people
(Chen, 2006). G. Leech (1983) has made great contributions to the further study of the Politeness Principle (PP),
including Tact Maxim, Generosity Maxim, Approbation Maxim, Modesty Maxim, Agreement Maxim and Sympathy
Maxim. Some advertisements, such as the public service advertisements usually observe the Tact Maxim, Generosity
Maxim and Sympathy Maxim of Leech’s Politeness Principle. Public service advertising is the use of commercial
advertising techniques for non-commercial purposes. The consciousness of the masses can be called together through
the public service advertising.

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Note: This paper is sponsored by JLPOPSS with the code of 2010B29.

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II. THE OBSERVATION OF THE CP IN ADVERTISING LANGUAGE

When the addresser is observing the maxims in a direct way, he may expect the addressee to make his inferences on
the assumption that the addresser is following the maxims of conversation. This means both the addresser and the
addressee assume that they are following the conversational maxims. The addressee interprets the addresser’s statement
and makes inferences in order to preserve the assumption of cooperation. As for advertising, it’s the advertiser
addressing to the consumers. For their own purposes, they will take advantage of the implicatures generated by
observing the maxims of the CP. For example:
(1)My Goodness! My Guinness!
---Guinness Beer
Obviously, the meaning of this advertisement is not given directly. However, in order to infer the implied meaning of
this ad, the reader must assume that the advertiser is observing the conversational maxims. Thus, the reader can get the
implied meaning by thinking about the relation between “My Goodness” and “My Guinness”. According to the maxim
of Relation, whenever something is said, there must have been some related reason; otherwise the utterance will not
make any sense. “My Goodness!” is an exclamatory sentence which is used to express something amazing or something
that is out of one’s expectation. Thus the implied meaning of this ad must be that drinking Guinness beer can make
people feel good and have very strong feeling to say “my goodness”. This example shows us that the maxims of
Relation as a principle of communication can be the trigger of further conclusions. The implicature in the exemplified
ad certainly works better than telling readers directly that the Guinness beer is good. By employing the strategy of
implicature, the advertisers deliberately cause their readers extra processing effort. Since advertisers’ initial goal is to
draw consumers’ attention and create their interest, extra processing effort may add extra attention-holding effect.
Moreover, inferring an indirect meaning on the basis of maxims of Relation can give rise to a pleasant feeling, springing
from a sort of intellectual satisfaction. Increased memorability is thus a major advantage derived from conversational
implicatures in advertising.
Besides the maxim of Relation, conversational implicatures in advertising are sometimes also based on the
observation of the maxims of Quantity, Quality and Manner.
(2)One thing that definitely isn’t changing is our world-class service and support.
---Digital Computer Company
(3)The Altima is built with such precision that it had an average gap difference of just 0.18 inches.
---Altima Car
(4)And the holiday starts as soon as you board Air New Zealand, with friendly staff on each of the 32 flights from
Asia & Japan every week.
--- New Zealand Air Line
In the above three ads, the advertisers claim the specific point of their advertised products or services. According to
the maxims of Quantity—“Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the
exchange” (Dai&He, 2010, P.92), in the first ad, the advertiser indicates that their world-class service and support is
always as good as that in the past. That is the only thing that is not changed. Consumers can be confident of them.
While in the second and the third ad, the advertisers observe the maxims of Quantity and make the ads more clearly and
definitely by using the specific numbers “0.18”, “each of the 32 flights…every week”, which make the advertisements
more credible.

III. THE VIOLATION OF THE CP IN ADVERTISING LANGUAGE

People communicate with each other on the basis of conforming to the CP maxims on some level. But if the
advertisers fail to observe the maxims, they must do so with the intention of attracting more consumers to pay attention
to their products or services. And flouting occurs when the advertisers obviously fail to observe the maxims, which
leads to the production of implicature. The following is going to show some examples to see how maxims are flouted.
A. The Violation of the Quantity Maxim
According to Grice, when a speaker blatantly gives more or less information than the situation requires, flouting of
the maxims of Quantity occurs. In advertising, if the advertiser leaves out some information, he must be doing it
purposely. And since the brief and short ads can make people memorize easily and achieve the promotion effects, most
of the slogans or headlines are succinct. Obviously this flouts the maxims of Quantity that needs to make required
information. The following are ads made by NOKIA Mobile
(1) Connecting people.
---NOKIA Mobile
As for this ad, people may ask “Who or what connects people?”, for the important information is absent in the ad.
But if the audiences know it’s about NOKIA mobile, they can get the implicature by themselves and know it implies
that NOKIA mobile phones connect people. Especially when people open the NOKIA mobile phone, the picture of
grasped hands appear on the screen with the word “connecting people”, they can easily infer what the ad implies. It
means NOKIA mobile phones can help people communicate well. In this ad, only two words are used but the motive of
the advertiser is fully expressed, which directly test the point that providing less information may attract more readers to

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THEORY AND PRACTICE IN LANGUAGE STUDIES 2621

pay attention to the advertised products, though it flouts the maxims of Quantity.
(2) Coke adds life…
---Coca-Cola
According to the maxims of Quantity, the slogan certainly saves a lot specific words that can show the real qualities
of Coca-Cola. It flouts the maxims of Quantity. From the ad, people can’t get enough information as required. However,
by doing so, consumers can easily memorize it and at the same time, their curiosity can be roused. They may wonder
what Coke adds to our life? They may even go to find the answers by trying Coca-Cola, which may help to promote
Coke. And the thinking process can also impress consumers which will be helpful in establishing brand loyalty.
B. The Violation of the Quality Maxim
According to Grice (1967), there are several rhetoric devices which typically give rise to the flouting of the maxim of
Quality, including pun, metaphor, personification, hyperbole and irony. This kind of flouting is also commonly seen in
print ads.
(1) Money doesn’t grow on trees. But it blossoms at our branches.
---Lloyd Bank
In this advertisement, the word “branch” also has two meanings. The first one is the literal meaning “branches of the
trees”; the second “branch” refers to each branches of the bank. The implicature they really want to convey is that once
the customers deposit their money in the Lloyd Bank, their money will increase unceasingly. Pun in this ad gives rise to
the flouting of the maxim of Quality
Another example, in the ad for Macintosh computer, the advertisers grasp what the users need and interest. They
explain the web functions of the Macintosh computer in eye-catching headline with succinct language. And in the later
part of the advertisement, by using irony the advertiser stress the characteristics of the product, that is:
(2) In spite of all this, we’re inclined to admit that there’s just one thing in the office that won’t be made any easier by
installing a Macintosh. You might find yourself lining up to use it.
---Macintosh Computer
After stating the advantages of the computer, the advertiser uses “in spite of this” to describe the only disadvantages
of installing this kind of computer, that is, people need to line up for using it. The implicature here is this kind of
computer is so convenient that people all want to use it.
C. The Violation of the Manner Maxim
In advertising, the flouting of the maxims of Manner, especially the sub-maxim “Be brief” and “Avoid ambiguity” is
worth more attention. The following ad is the violation of the Manner Maxim:
(1) A better stretch for the long stretch.
---An Airline Agency
In this ad, the first “stretch” means “becoming longer, wider, etc”. The second “stretch” refers to “continuous or
unbroken period of time”. The implicature of the ad is that the airline agency can provide enough space for customers to
stretch freely during the long-time travel. The two “stretch”s make customers feel comfortable.
(2) You will go nuts for the nuts you get in Nux.
---Nux
“Nux” is the brand name, whose pronunciation is similar to “nuts”. While the phrase “go nuts” means being crazy or
very enthusiastic about something, and “nuts” here is an adjective. The second “nuts” means fruit consisting of a hard
shell with a kernel inside it that can be eaten. These three words being put together not only produce rhyme, but also
give the implicature that Nux nuts are so tasty that buyers will go crazy about them.
D. The Violation of the Relation Maxim
The demand for Relation simply means that the advertiser should only include information in his message that is
relevant. As the life tempo is speeding up, people are increasingly concerned with their own things. To attract their
attention and interests and at the same time make them not feel bored is becoming more difficult. Successful ads always
closely relate to people’s needs and interests. For example:
(1) The only sound you’ll hear is praise.
---Lexus Car
(2) Less bread. No jam.
---London Underground
In the two ads, both of them flout the maxims of Relation. In the first ad, from the literal meaning, the “praise” has no
relation with the sound of Lexus cars. By flouting the maxims of Relation, the implicature is produced which means that
Lexus cars drives smoothly with light sound. And because of the good quality, what you can hear is only people’s praise
about it and worrying about noises is unnecessary. For the second ad, it is also difficult for us to infer the real meaning
that the advertiser wants to convey. Such words like “bread” and “jam” have no relations to the underground. But after
weighing the words, you may find the word “jam” also has the meaning of “traffic jam”. Consequently the implicature
can be easily inferred, which means that “Traveling by London metro, you will spend less money and can avoid traffic
jams”.

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(3) Our big bird can be fed even at night.

---Air France
Without any information, the readers may wonder what this ad is designed for. The conventional meaning of this may
have to do with the bird that is fed by the advertiser, although it makes nonsense. It seems that the advertiser is
uncooperative and violates the maxims of Relation since the message is far from connecting Air France. But in fact, this
is the kind of metaphor as rhetoric device people encounter in everyday life and consumers can interpret it. The
meaning in this ad is that Air France is like a big bird which can fly well, fly anywhere and at any time. This implicature
bears the advertising point which can not be more relevant to consumers’ needs, especially for those who always travel
by plane but are worried about the safety as well as the time schedule problem.

IV. THE APPLICATION OF THE PP TO PUBLIC SERVICE ADVERTISING

The Politeness Principle is generally followed in advertisement. The six maxims of PP in the ad are reflected: First,
highlight the interests of customers, stress self-damaged. Second, praise the customers’ choice on the face, secretly
praise the production. Third, emphasize the same position with customers. Fourth, try to obtain the same feelings with
customers. Detailed analysis as followings: most commercial ads will highlight the benefits of the consumers, that is,
through the purchase of the product, the consumers will get the benefits. This is also the important point that an ad
expresses its communicative intent. At the same time, advertisement will tell the audience that the advertisers pay the
cost and efforts, stress that he suffers damage. If the price of the commodity is low, the advertising will emphasize the
consumers can get more benefits (such as discounted commodity’s ads, daily necessities’ ads, etc.); if the price of the
commodity is very high, the advertising will avoid the high price and focus on the good quality of the commodity.
The Tact Maxim and Sympathy Maxim of the Politeness Principle are often observed in advertising. Especially in the
public service advertising language. Typical topics for public service advertising include public health and public safety
issues, emergency preparedness instructions, natural resources conservation information, and other topics of broad
interest. Such advertising is generally produced and distributed on a cooperative basis by governmental agencies or
nonprofit organizations acting in concert with private advertising and mass media companies.
A. The Observation of the Tact Maxim
The Tact maxim of PP is specified as minimize benefit to self and maximize benefit to other (Chen, 2006).The Tact
maxim, therefore, is the basis of the Politeness Principle and most widely used in the public service advertising. Take
the following advertisement for example.
(1) Leave the dirty things to me, keep yourself clean.
Maybe everyone have seen this ad on TV, a dustbin stand on the sidewalk and smile to a young man, at first he feels
funny and strange. But when the dustbin says “Leave the dirty things to me, keep yourself clean”, the man looks at the
wrapper in his hand and put it into the dustbin. On the surface, what the dustbin said have minimized the benefit to itself
and maximized the benefit to the young man, it accords to the Tact maxim of PP. Through the use of the Tact maxim,
this public service advertising can raise people’s environmental-awareness.
(2) A discarded can is kicked from one to another in the subway compartment. A few minutes later, a man picks it up
and throws it into the litter bin. Then the narrator says like this “Scored a goal! The competition of the social morality
has already started”.
The man picking up the discarded can sets an example for the public without considering himself. Obviously, the idea
and language of the ad comply with the Tact maxim. This kind of advertisements may achieve the effect that everyone
wants to win in the competition of the social morality. We can contribute our share to the harmonious society.
B. The Observation of the Generosity Maxim
In the public service advertising, the use of the Generosity maxim is also very widely. The Generosity maxim is
defined as minimize cost to other and maximize cost to self (Chen, 2006). To the decent and sincere extent, that is, send
a message through advertising. Obvious advantages of such ads are usually effective.
(1) A bus is coming. Two little boys rush into it in order to occupy one seat. The rest passengers on the bus look at
them. The two boys turned back at the same time and said to an elder woman together “Granny, come and sit here”.
At the beginning, you may think the two boys fight the seat for themselves, but in fact both of them want to keep the
only seat for the aged woman. The little boys are willing to “self-sacrifice” in order to minimize the cost to other people.
So this advertising has observed the Generosity maxim and the intention of it is to invoke the young people to take care
of the elderly in the public.
C. The Observation of the Sympathy Maxim
The sympathy maxim is defined as minimize antipathy between self and other; maximize sympathy between self and
other (Chen, 2006). This includes a small group of speech acts such as congratulation, commiseration, and expressing
condolences, all of which is in accordance with Leech’s Politeness Principle.
(1) No trading, no killing.

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THEORY AND PRACTICE IN LANGUAGE STUDIES 2623

Some superstars, such as Yao Ming, have shot advertisements about the protection of the endangered wild animals.
The public service advertising can touch the heart of every audience. Nowadays, some merchants kill wild animals in
order to sell the valuable part of them. Our government takes some measures to deal with the situation. “No trading, no
killing”—the slogan shows sympathy for the endangered animals. The government hopes that this advertising can wake
up people’s consciousness. Everyone should take immediate actions to prevent illegal trading and killing.
Public Service Advertising is used to spread information to the public. In most cases, the advertisements observe the
Politeness Principle out of politeness, even at the cost of violating the maxims of the CP. It can achieve special
convincing effects on the consumers.

V. CONCLUSION
Advertising is a propagating activity that introduces new commodity or services to the public. It aims to arouse the
consumers’ purchasing interests. Advertising language, as a special form of communication, exerts great and constant
influence on the consumers’ purchasing action.
The paper analyzes the advertisements based on the Cooperative Principle by Grice and the Politeness Principle by
Leech. The addresser may expect the addressee to make his inferences on the assumption that the addresser is following
the maxims of conversation. This means both the addresser and the addressee assume that they are following the
conversational maxims. The addressee interprets the addresser’s statement and makes inferences in order to preserve the
assumption of cooperation. As for advertising, it’s the advertiser addressing to the consumers. For their own purposes,
they will take advantage of the implicatures generated by observing the maxims of the CP. The conversational
implicature is generated by the observation of the CP and by the violation of the CP. Conversational implicature or the
implied meaning often occurs in advertising language. A lot of examples related to the violation of the maxims of the CP
and the observation of the PP are presented in the paper. The advertising can achieve special effects by applying the
principle of conversation. According to Grice, conversational implicatures will occur through flouting the maxims of CP.
Implicatures are more persuasive than plain expressions, especially in advertisements. In the communication of
advertisements, advertisers often impart information in an indirect way by openly and intentionally flouting the maxims
of the CP in order to allow readers of advertisements to infer the conversational implicature from the literal meaning.
The advertising language also observes Leech’s Politeness Principle, particularly the public service advertising.
Public service advertising is the use of commercial advertising techniques for non-commercial purposes and the
consciousness of the masses can be called together through it. The PP is taken as the general guidelines to successful
human communication and it is one of the most effective strategies for planning the language of advertising. The Tact
maxim, Generosity maxim and Sympathy maxim of the PP are often applied to advertisements. By using these maxims,
the advertisements can gain more attraction and fulfill the ultimate objective of persuading consumers successfully.
Public Service Advertising can achieve special convincing effects on the consumers.

REFERENCES
[1] Brown,G ( 1994). Language and Understanding. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[2] Brown, P. & Levinson, S. (1978).Universals in Language Usage: Politeness Phenomena. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
[3] Chen Linhua. (2006). An Introduction to Linguistics. Changchun: Jilin University Press.
[4] Dai Weidong & He Zhaoxiong. (2010). A New Concise Course in Linguistics for Students of English (2nd edn.). Shanghai:
Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.
[5] Fraser, Roger. (1974). Perspectives on Politeness. Journal of Pragmatics, 14: 219-236.
[6] George Yule. (1996). Pragmatics. London: Oxford University Press.
[7] Hu Zhuanglin. (2006). Linguistics: A Course Book (3rd edn.). Beijing: Beijing University Press.
[8] Leech, G. N. (1986). English in Advertising: A Linguistic Study of Advertising in Great Britain. London: Routledge.

Fang Liu was born in Jilin Province, China on October 23rd, 1976, who has obtained Master’s Degree of Arts in foreign
linguistics and applied linguistics from Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin Province, China, in 2006.
As a LECTURER, she teaches Applied Linguistics at School of Foreign Languages, Changchun University of Science and
Technology. One book (as an editor) and two published articles are as follows: [1] The Breakthrough of Three English Skills.
(Changchun, Jilin Province: Jilin University Press, 2009); [2] Social Constructivism and Foreign Language Teaching (Changchun,
Jilin Province: Chinese Campus Literature, 2009); [3] Task-based Language Teaching Method and College Foreign Language
Teaching (Changchun, Jilin Province: 21 Century Foreign Language Teaching and Research, 2008). Her previous research interests
are Applied Linguistics and Intercultural Communication. At present she focuses on Intercultural Pragmatics & Cognitive
Linguistics.

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