Toward a Neo-economy Principle in pragmatics

- Language use is under the influence of economy concerns.
- The earlier principles of economy concerning language use are imperfect.
- The effort and utility of interlocutors should be evaluated jointly.
- Speech communication is a process of establishing an equilibrium between the addresser's intention and the addressee's response.
- The Neo-economy Principle in pragmatics serves as a guide to a successful act of speech communication.

It is widely acknowledged that language use is under the influence of economy concerns, together with the rest of human behaviors. Such influence has been identified in many aspects of language use, including phonology, syntax, and pragmatics, and its impact upon the language has been generalized into formulas and principles. By a thorough review of the earlier literature, however, this paper finds that the earlier principles of economy are imperfect, in that they view language use as static, isolated and one-sided. We instead argue that language use should be viewed dynamically, and that the effort and utility of interlocutors should be evaluated jointly, against the effect required by the communicative goal in a certain speech community. Basing on this observation, as well as insight from economics, we propose the Neo-economy Principle that every effective utterance is the result of the interlocutors' efforts to strive after the optimal equilibrium of the cost and utility in their verbal communication. More specifically, the optimal equilibrium is subject to the control of five maxims: the Maxim of General Equilibrium, the Maxim of Common Presuppositions, the Maxim of Proximal Choice, the Maxim of Conformity, and the Maxim of Utterance Utility, which serve as a guide to a successful act of communication. It is hoped that such a theory may offer a better account of speech acts from the perspective of economy.