Linguistics and phonetics

Question

What Maxim(s) are violated (flouted) in the following dialogues: Explain your answer and state the reason why the maxim(s) are flouted:

1.              Teacher to a student who arrives late more than ten minutes to the class meeting:

• Teacher: Wow! You’re such a punctual fellow! Welcome to the class.

                       • Student: Sorry sir! It won’t happen again.

2.                              • A: Do you like John and Kate?

• B: Kate is fun.

Answer 1

Though there are multiple different takes on "Maxims", I'll assume you're talking about the Gricean maxims, which are probably the most commonly taught. With that in mind, the maxims to consider are as follows:

1. The maxim of quantity - Be informative, but succinct
2. Maxim of quality - Be truthful/honest
3. Maxim of relation - Be relevant
4. Maxim of manner - Be clear, brief, and orderly. Avoid ambiguity.

With that in mind, let's tackle your questions:

1. The teacher in this instance attempts to be funny/sarcastic by saying something that is demonstrably false. If the student is more than 10 minutes late, then it is NOT the case that they are being a "punctual fellow." With that in mind, the maxim being violated is that of quality. This illustrates an important point: one can violate a maxim with a specific goal in mind without necessarily causing discourse problems. Humor and sarcasm often violate maxims.
2. In this question, the second speaker dodges the question by saying something that doesn't really address what the first speaker was asking about. In effect, the second speaker's answer is not relevant to what the first speaker wants to know, which means they have violated the maxim of relation.