01 Grice’s maxims Meaning past the words. Speakers are presumed cooperative, so what you imply by obeying — or pointedly flouting — quantity, quality, relation and manner is heard as part of what you said. ↓ 02 Relevance theory One principle where Grice had four: every utterance carries a presumption of its own relevance — the largest effect for the least processing — and the hearer stops at the first reading that pays off. ↓ 03 Speech act theory Saying is doing. Locution (the words), illocution (the act performed — promising, ordering, naming), perlocution (the effect on the hearer): to speak is to act on the world, not just describe it. ↓ 04 Parts of speech are not universal Noun, verb, adjective, preposition — the inventory you were taught is not a natural kind. It is one language family’s accident, projected onto the rest. ↓