H. P. Grice's Maxims for the "Cooperative Principle" of Communication

I. Quantity: 1. What you tell your reader should be as informative as your reader currently needs it to be.  2. What you tell your reader should not be more than your reader currently needs it to be.

II. Quality: Tell the truth. 1. Do not say things you believe to be false. 2. Do not say things for which you lack adequate evidence

III. Relation: Be relevant.

IV. Manner: Be perspicuous. 1. Avoid obscurity.  2. Avoid ambiguity. 3. Be brief. 4. Be orderly.

Paraphrased from "Logic and Conversation," in The Logic of Grammar, ed. Donald Davidson and Gilbert Harman (Encino, Cal.: Dickenson, 1975), pp. 64-75. 

        Grice, a philosopher of language, sought to establish by reasoning what fundamental rules are required to enable two users of any language to communicate.  These "maxims" are, like any philosophical propositions, open to debate.  Can you imagine cultures in which the reverse of any one of them would be required to communicate properly (e.g., "Do not tell the truth" or "Tell your reader more than s/he needs to know")?  What happens to academic prose when each of these maxims is violated, and how can you tell from the way the prose sounds/feels/means that something specific has gone wrong?  Do combinations of maxim-violations seem likely to occur under certain circumstances, especially for student writers?