Grice claimed that there are certain maxims that guide conversations. He labeled the four he found as "maxims." For the purpose of this blog I wanted to focus in on two in particular: quality and quantity.
Quantity is the amount that one person speaks to another. He claimed that a person in a healthy and worthwhile conversation should say no more and no less than is required to maintain the interest of the others and continue or end a conversation.
Quality is the actual value of what is being said. He claimed that those in a conversation should say only things that add value to the conversation. What is being stated should be believed to be true by the speaker or the speaker should have evidence for what is being said.
As I was reading this particular section of the chapter I began to think about the differences commonly noted and studied in men and women. For the purpose of this blog I want to specify that when I use the term "men" or "women" I am not meaning to categorize all persons of a female sex or of a male sex. It would be too general to assume and/or make statements that claim the opinions and actions of all men are the same and the attitudes and actions of all women are the same. This is not true. It has just been found that certain qualities are more commonly found in men and other qualities are more commonly found in women.
I have similarly heard in one of my communication class discussions that women enjoy talking about the details of a story and build suspense up to a climax of a story while men would rather that the person they are conversing with simply presents the meat of the story or the main point. One can see how it would be frustrating or difficult for both parties to communicate on common ground.
I relate this particular idea of gender differences in communication to Grice's ideas of what makes a worthwhile conversation. According to Grice saying too much (quantity) can ruin a conversation or take away from the essence of a good convo. For women, it seems that adding extra "fluff" is what makes a good conversation worthwhile. Men would disagree, perhaps, that all the "extras" are not needed. However for women these extras are important because they allow them to create/build social support systems by creating trust and kinship. For example, when two women are talking and one women is sharing a story about her daughter learning to walk; the other women is listening intently. The women who is listening is showing that she cares, while the women who is talking is able to share her excitement (trusting the other).
Generally quantity and quality go hand in hand. It is often assumed that if one is speaking too much what they have to say may not be of much quality. Quality can be expressed in very little quantity of words, usually; or so many people assume so. It is my opinion, too, that for the most part quality and quantity are relational. I do, however, believe that sometimes conversations do not have very much substance may actually have value. Often women will converse over what seems very trivial matters. Perhaps, these conversations, though appear on the outside as meaningless or needless, assist in building strong social bonds and ties. After all, the more one talks to another, the more often one talks to another, the more ingrained that person becomes in the others life. They gain many details about the other person and are able to better understand and bond with each other. In some ways it is like a photo or a painting: the more details that are noticed or exposed in the photo the more comprehensive one can have of the picture when viewing the photo: even those details that seem trivial and minute.
In closing, I would argue that quantity and quality are aspects of a conversation that are up for some individual interpretation. Everyone will have their own opinion on what is too much talking and what is substantial information for the conversation. Each conversation will be different and every person will change based on their experiences and attitudes.
I found a clip below from a Friend's episode. It is kinda humorous but it shows the idea of what this blog is talking about. I wasn't able to embed it because it was disabled on you tube and for some reason it did not create a link but if you copy and paste it into a page it should work! Its worth watching!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGoC8FTLKSI
To close, I would just like to pose a question to think about, how can your daily communication be improved by being aware of the quality and quantity of what is being said?
