Flouting Gricean Maxims in High-Context Communication: Evidence from Asian Boss Street Interviews

Abstract

This study examines how conversational maxims are flouted in high-context cultures through a pragmatic analysis of a YouTube video from Asian Boss Channel. The purpose of this study is to observe how the Gricean Maxims of Quality, Quantity, Relation, and Manner are flouted by the interviewees who originally came from a high-context culture region. This study also observes how these flouted conversations reflect on their communication flows. This study draws on the qualitative approach; data were collected from video transcriptions and observation of the videos containing spontaneous street interviews in the channel. Selected utterances were chosen through purposive sampling based on their maxim violations. The findings reveal that responders often flout maxims, especially those of Quality and Quantity, as a strategy to maintain politeness, avoid directness, and convey implied meanings. Flouting a maxim in such contexts often reflects culturally informed strategies rather than conversational breakdowns, aligning with implicit norms within the speaker’s cultural settings.  This study reveals that flouting maxims is a common feature of communication in high-context cultures. These findings of the study offer insight into the crossing of pragmatics and cross-cultural communication and may contribute to a deeper understanding of language use in multicultural communication contexts.