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Grice's
theory of implicature has been considered ethnocentric,
but this paper will argue that it is highly
relevant to intercultural analysis. The Principle
of Cooperation, and its subordinate maxims,
focus on the rationality of discourse, but Grice
also includes linguistic and nonlinguistic context,
conventional meaning and "other items of
background knowledge" in the inferential
process. This notion of background knowledge
is radically refined by Sperber and Wilson.
Within a theory of relevance, interlocutors
share only some contextual clues in a "mutual
cognitive environment". In intercultural
negotiation a high level of awareness of assumptions
about what is "mutually manifest"
is of central importance to performance.
Teachers of intercultural communication skills
attempt to establish a balance between providing
meaningful practice and a useful rationale for
improving theoretical awareness of the inferential
process. This paper uses recordings of a classroom
simulation involving foreign and Japanese students
of intercultural communication taking part in
a traffic accident insurance negotiation. Two
data extracts are examined in detail, in which
the failure by a foreign student to recognize
radically different background assumptions had
a decisive negative impact on his ability to
negotiate, but a positive impact on his ability
to analyse his own intercultural performance.
Introduction:
While
Grice's Cooperative Principle (and the subordinate
maxims) are much cited, Grice identifies four
other important factors that influence the inferential
process. To work out that a particular conversational
implicature is present, the hearer will reply
on the following data: (1) the conventional
meaning of the words used, together with the
identity of any references that may be involved;
(2) the Cooperative Principle and its maxims,
(3) the context, linguistic and otherwise, of
the utterance; (4) other items of background
knowledge; and (5) the fact (or supposed fact)
that all relevant items falling under the previous
headings are available to both participants
and both participants know or assume this to
be the case. (1989: 31)
Grice`s retrospective explanation of "implicature"
also includes reference to "the psychological
state or attitude which needs to be attributed
to a speaker" (op. cit.: 370). This paper
will consider all these factors in relation
to the inferential process in intercultural
communication. Number five is of particular
importance for intercultural analysis in that
it raises the issue of the participants' assumptions
about what is available to both participants
for use in an inferential process in terms of
the other four categories.
Although
intercultural analysis was not Grice's main
concern, he defines the discourse that concerns
his exploration as "concerted enterprises"
(1989: 369) that allow "a high degree of
diversity in the motivations underlying quite
meager common objectives". Grice himself
(1989: 26) makes no explicit claims of universality,
using characteristically modest language to
refer to a "first approximation of a general
principle" and a "rough general principle".
By arguing only for the existence of "some
such general principle as this", we may
assume that Grice is adopting what he considers
to be the appropriate degree of certainty for
a conversational principle. He is extremely
careful not to overstate the case for "cooperation",
suggesting only that "each participant
recognizes in them [talk exchanges], to some
extent, a common purpose or set of purposes,
or at least a mutually accepted direction".
(op. cit.: 26)
It
is true that, if there are any universal principles
in conversation, they are also necessarily in
operation in monocultural settings. However,
general theories cannot easily be considered
as culturally neutral "universals"
(See Wierzbicka, 1991) and it is difficult to
imagine how any theory can be expressed without
some degree of ethnocentricity. Indeed, the
pursuit of universality can be something of
a distraction in the search for some degree
of intercultural understanding in particular
settings.
Grice's
Principle of Cooperation
Make your conversational contribution such as
is required, at the stage at which it occurs,
by the accepted purpose or direction of the
talk exchange in which you are engaged. (Grice
1975: 45) The wording of the general Principle
of Cooperation provides little difficulty for
intercultural analysis. The degree of uncertainty
- the apparent vagueness of Grice's Principle
of Cooperation is highly appropriate for discussions
of cultural diversity. Making a contribution
"such as is required, at the stage at which
it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction
of the talk exchange in which you are engaged"
clearly allows for the acceptance of different
purposes and requirements in different contexts
and does not exclude the influence of norms
associated with a variety of widely different
speech communities. Whether an intercultural
conversation has a mutually "accepted purpose"
will, however, be questioned. While Grice is
ready to express genuine doubts, he is also
prepared to commit himself to his most basic
principle in a more absolute manner, when he
refers in his retrospective epilogue (1989:
370) to a "single supreme Conversational
Principle, that of cooperativeness" as
at least "an acceptable candidate"
(op. cit: 371) for being the one overriding
principle of conversation.
The
Data Process
Researchers
into intercultural conversation have to consider
the status and role of general theories such
as Grice's theory of implicature within a super
ordinate framework of intercultural research.
Schiffrin (1994: 203) suggests that a shift
to real data "can have far reaching effects
in Gricean pragmatics itself". The confrontation
of data and abstract theory provides insights
that no single perspective can provide alone.
Before
considering abstract theoretical considerations
of implicature in detail, we shall first present
two data samples which are extracts from recordings
of simulations involving foreign and Japanese
students of intercultural communication in a
Japanese University. One American student (AM)
and three Japanese students (JP1, JP2 and JP3)
played the role of insurance agents, each representing
a driver in a traffic accident. Their aim was
to negotiate the lowest possible percentage
of blame for the driver they represented. (Numbers
in the transcript represent percentages proposed
by negotiators.) Common background information
included a detailed description of the accident
by the teacher and a short statement by each
driver. Negotiators then prepared a pre-negotiation
sheet (appendix one).
The
method of transcription follows Foster et al.
(2000), who propose common criteria for transcribing
units of discourse for analysis. The students
were recorded as part of an intercultural learning
process. After the recording, they were asked
to identify critical moments in the negotiation
for transcription, discussion and analysis.
In the information provided before the negotiation,
the Escort driver, represented by the American
student, had admitted to having "a couple
of drinks". The analysis will focus on
the references in two parallel extracts to the
fact that the Escort driver had been drinking
before the accident.
Transcript
Part 1
JP1:
|Why | |Ah ...I think ..{.er ...Escort..}…{you…
Escort
AM: Yes.}
JP1: ::Escort is forty to fifty|
AM: |Tell me why |
JP1: |Tell me why |
AM: |Tell me what laws I broke first |
JP1: |I don't know {I don't know that, I don't
know} about er the situation in other country
:: but er in Japan ::especially in Japan ::
er ...er You were drunk, {drunk.}|What is drunk
is ...er...driving
AM: Ah
JP1: ...is most severe situation|
AM: |Okay| Where does it say ::I was drunk then
|It doesn't say {er my er client does not say}
:: he was drunk|
JP1: |Ah...even a little bit {er couldn't er
}you couldn't admit That in Japanese law ::I
think|
Transcript
Part 2 (6 minutes later in the same conversation)
AM
|You should be more cautious:: when you`re {when
you`re} coming into this lane :: because I'm
driving ... |In Japan these lines here ...::
well according to what {the VW} the representative
for the VW was ...|
JP1 (Interrupting) |::Even if you are driving
main road you are drunk…| you are drunk…|
Okay | Er {you have} you did have a drink ::
even a little bit :: so I
think er your responsibility is er 40 to 50,
{er 40 to 50 and er}…|
Am |{How do you} how do you know :: I was drunk
though :: or my client was drunk | I mean ::
how do you know |
JP1 |You said ...before|
AM |I didn't say :: he was drunk| I said ::
he had a drink|
JP1 | In Japan a little bit drink means drunk::
|Okay| {… in Japanese law}| (laughter from
other JP students)
Conventional
Meaning, Context and Background Knowledge
The
word "drunk" as used by JP1 projects
us into a consideration of the importance of
conventional meaning in the inferential process
in relation to context and background knowledge.
Downes (1984: 295) refers to the " 'inextricability'
problem of deciding which part of the representation
should be attached to the linguistic items as
'meaning' and which part is truly 'background'".
The Collins English Dictionary (1994: 478) defines
drunk as "intoxicated with alcohol to the
extent of losing control over normal physical
and mental functions". If we could exclude
considerations of context, there is a clear
difference between being "drunk" and
"having a couple of drinks". Qualifying
someone as "drunk" suggests a state
of confusion or disorientation leading to an
inability to control one's behaviour and would
definitely include an incapacity to drive. "Having
a couple of drinks" suggests a much lower
level of incapacity. In the context of driving
the difference is, however, substantially reduced,
as "a couple of drinks" might be seen
as incapacitating. The Japanese student uses
the word "drunk" to mean "had
had a drink", something which is not just
illegal, but considered a serious offence for
a driver in Japan where there is zero tolerance
of drinking and driving. There is hence an entanglement
between the normally accepted range of possible
meanings of a lexical item in one context and
the background assumptions in relation to drinking
and driving within a different speech community.
JP1
identifies the problem early in the conversation.
AM does not. This is clear from the way JP1
explains "drunk" contrastively.
JP1
|I don't know {I don't know that… I don't
know} about er the situation in other country
:: but er {in Japan} especially in Japan, er
...er You were drunk
{drunk} |What is drunk ...er...driving…
AM: Ah
JP1: ...is most severe situation|
The
American student with his emphasis on conventional
meaning rather than on background assumptions
(I didn't say he was drunk, I said he had a
drink) implies that the Japanese student, given
his limited linguistic ability, has misunderstood
the different shades of meaning between 'having
a drink' and 'drunk'. However, whatever linguistic
difficulty might be in evidence in this transcript,
for the Japanese student, the conventional meaning
is not detachable from the background context.
According to Sperber and Wilson (1989: 15) "
a context is a psychological construct, a subset
of the hearer's assumptions about the world".
In the context of a driving negotiation in Japan,
there is no significant distinction between
"drunk" and "having a drink".
As the Japanese student affirms in the second
extract: "In Japan a little bit drink means
drunk OK … in Japanese Law". For the
American student, his driver's "couple
of drinks" do not represent the most critical
factor in determining responsibility. As Sperber
and Wilson (1989: 16) suggest "a mismatch
between the context envisaged by the speaker
and the one actually used by the hearer may
result in a misunderstanding".
The
Maxims
A
non-conventional implicature, according to Downes
(1984: 318) is "an inference generated
in the course of a conversation in order to
preserve the assumption that participants are
obeying the maxims". We must, however,
be careful not to imply either that they are
literally being "obeyed" or that they
are sufficient in themselves to generate implicatures.
The relationship between implicature and observing
the maxims is far from simple. Implicatures
are influenced, but not exclusively generated,
by perceived violations of maxims in a social
context. In the traffic negotiation, the assertion
that the escort driver was "drunk"
is at issue. If it is perceived to observe suitable
norms in relation to the maxim of quality, if
it is perceived as true, it is relevant. If,
as the American student argues, it is not true
that the Escort driver was "drunk",
it is irrelevant. It is not the violation or
deliberate flouting or otherwise of maxims that
is important, but the perception of such violations.
The perceived truth and relevance of JP1's statement
are hence a central issue of this critical incident.
The perception of whether the escort driver
can be said to be "drunk", the perception
of whether he was over the legal limit in this
context, the perceived seriousness of any drink-driving
offence are all central, related as they are
to culturally determined values. Mey (1994:
74) suggests that the principle and maxims have
no absolute form but are "always defined
relative to a particular culture". What
for an outsider, is a breech of his/her maxim
based on perceptions of his/her own cultural
norms may be seen to meet acceptable standards
of cooperation to insiders in context but in
relation to their own cultural norms.
The
relationship between (potentially conflicting)
maxims is an important part of the inferential
process in context. In his retrospective analysis,
Grice himself doubts the mutual independence
of the maxims which his structure "seems
to require" (1989: 371). He opposes, for
example, the maxim of quality to the maxim of
quantity, stating that "it is irrational
to bite off more than you can chew whether the
object of your pursuit is hamburgers or the
Truth" (op. cit.: 369). Schiffrin (1994:
195) too notes that a maxim "can be violated
because of a clash with another maxim".
The appropriate quantity of relevant, truthful
information is negotiated, according to some
perceived but not necessarily mutually accepted
norm or requirement of interaction in a particular
context. However, rather than seeing clashes
as a weakness of Grice's system, they may be
seen as an important aspect of the skill of
inferencing. Cook (1992: 150/151) underlines
the fact that maxims often stand in opposition
to each other - "at times these demands
pull in opposite directions, and one may oust
another". Cook also refers to Lakoff's
"Politeness Principle" which provides
three further maxims: "to avoid imposing,
to make their hearer feel good, to give him
or her options". Cook suggests that "the
balance between the two principles changes with
the purpose of the communication, and the relationship
between the participants". At the root
of Brown and Levinson's (1989) Politeness Theory
is the notion that inferences are generated
by clashes between requirements of politeness
and Gricean maxims of conversational efficiency.
Let
us temporarily put aside the traffic negotiation
to consider a strong negative claim against
Grice's theory - that it is "an example
of ethnocentrism" Riley (1988: 16/17).
Riley suggests that Grice's Principle of Cooperation
and its subordinate maxims have been wrongly
treated as "universal principles".
He concurs with George (in Riley, 1988: 17)
who dismisses Grice's maxims as the "local
aspirations of middle-class intellectuals".
He cites various examples, some anecdotal, stating
for example that "there are societies where
truth or sincerity varies according to social
status or to the chronological position in the
interaction as a whole".
Grice's
Principle does, however, make a specific reference
to the "stage" at which a contribution
occurs. This is compatible with Downes' notion
of commitment (1984: 274) : "each participant
has a commitment slate: that to which he is
committed because of what he has stated in the
course of the conversation up to the utterance
in question". Downes also emphasizes that
belief about what "the other party is committed
to" has an important influence on the cooperative
construction of conversations. In relation to
the negotiation of "drunkenness",
we can note that the negotiated meaning evolves
as the discussion develops. JP1's contextualized
meaning of "drunk" is first rejected,
but finally accepted by the American student.
Schiffrin
(1994: 190-203) emphasizes the cooperative construction
of conversation, through the interactional nature
of intentions in an inferential process, citing
Grice (1975: 58): "A intended the utterance
of x to produce some affect in an audience by
means of the recognition of this intention".
When interlocutors are from widely different
backgrounds, we may initially assume that a
speaker is breaking a particular maxim, but
we have only limited awareness of the speaker's
complex matrix of beliefs about what is required
at a particular stage of a conversation in a
particular context. Schiffrin suggests (op.
cit.: 192) that "we can view these intentions
as cycling back upon one another". If an
utterance is intended to produce a response,
this intention has to be recognized by the recipient.
The way the recipient represents this intention
will, in turn, influence the response s/he will
make.
The
ethnocentric case is commonly supported by descriptions
of exotic ethnic communities who appear to be
in serious breech of specific maxims as worded,
if they are considered normatively and in isolation,
such as the Malagasy "whose form of cooperation
seems to consist in making their contributions
as opaque, convoluted and non-perspicuous as
possible" (Keenan in Mey 1994: 74). (See
also Richards and Schmidt (1983: 124) and Wolfson
(1989: 59) We may counter that it would be rather
difficult to imagine any context where Grice's
maxims are operative as descriptive norms of
real conversations. A few hours of self-critical,
non-exotic personal experience suffice to show
that all of us regularly provide more or less
information or truth than is strictly required
for an efficient exchange of information and
that we do not need to look beyond our own daily
conversations to notice this. The question is
rather whether some such context-sensitive framework
is in operation as part of an inferential process.
In the case of the traffic negotiation, maxims
of quality and relation are opposed to background
knowledge, context and conventional meaning.
We may note that it is mainly through the maxims
that Grice's paradigm is challenged as highly
ethnocentric and that such readings tend to
take the maxims rather literally instead of
viewing them as aids to making implicatures
in context.
Clyne
(1996: 13) proposes a revised version of the
maxims "in the spirit of his [Grice's]
intentions, but with more regard for the communicative
patterns of non-English cultures". Clyne
concedes (op. cit.: 191) that his revised maxims
"do not altogether suit the needs of inter-cultural
communication". They are rather intended
to better reflect and respect the wide variety
of norms in different mono-cultural settings.
Clyne (op. cit.: 195) adds one further maxim
of his own. "In your contribution, take
into account anything you know or can predict
about the interlocutor's communication expectations."
This final "maxim" is a very useful
general statement about the skill of intercultural
inferencing, but may be out of place as a maxim,
if we see the role of the maxims in terms of
opposing notions of optimum efficiency to other
considerations, whether social or psychological,
in order to generate implicatures. Even before
the creation of Clyne's additions, Mey (1993:
65-83) asks whether we really need "all
those maxims" (77). There is less need
to add further maxims to Grice's framework for
intercultural analysis when they are viewed
as just one aspect of a complex matrix, a network
of beliefs, values and norms about what is required
in conversation that influence but do not dominate
the inferential process.
Assumptions
of Mutual Knowledge
Grice's
fifth point is critical in understanding an
intercultural process in that it evokes participants'
awareness of what they share in terms of the
other four factors. Sperber and Wilson (1989:
45) argue that "assumptions of mutual knowledge
are never truly warranted". In Sperber
and Wilson's view, mutual knowledge is a "philosophers'
construct with no close counterpart in reality"(op.
cit.: 38). However, they suggest (1) that "the
communication process itself gives rise to shared
information" and (2) "some sharing
of information is necessary if communication
is to be achieved".
The
perception of shared assumptions is so critical
in intercultural inferencing that the final
section of this paper will consider Sperber
and Wilson's refinement of the theory of inferencing
in relation to shared assumptions in some detail.
For Sperber and Wilson (op. cit.: 38) , while
"all humans live in the same physical environment",
this is only a common environment in a very
broad sense, within which variability must always
be accounted for, for the following reasons:
There are "differences in our narrower
physical environments".
1. "Perceptual abilities vary in effectiveness
from one individual to another".
2. "Inferential abilities" also vary.
3. "People speak different languages, they
have mastered different concepts", so they
(a) "construct different representations"
and (b) "make different inferences".
Sperber
and Wilson point out that even members of the
same linguistic communities using the same language
do not share the same assumptions as no two
people share identical "life histories".
They conclude that the notion of common knowledge
is untenable and the idea of shared knowledge
too vague. In our extract, the Japanese student's
contributions indicate an assumption that drinking
is incompatible with driving, however little
has been drunk, based on his knowledge that
it is illegal in Japan to have consumed any
alcohol when driving. The American student brings
the assumption that "having a drink"
or a "couple of drinks" before driving
is not a serious issue in this negotiation based
on his assumption that a driver is allowed to
have a few drinks up to a legal limit.
A
notion central to Sperber and Wilson's theory
of inferencing is that of "ostension".
One speaker "shows something" (49)
to the other or deliberately draws something
to the attention of the partner(s) in conversation.
What is described as the "main thesis"
of relevance theory (49) is that "an act
of ostension carries a guarantee of relevance
and that this fact - which we will call the
principle of relevance - makes manifest the
intention behind the ostension". This "guarantee"
is not a guarantee that an assumption will be
"mutually manifest" or that the communicative
intention will succeed. It is more a guarantee
that something relevant is being made available.
In our sample, the Japanese student's assertion
"You were drunk" is an act of ostension
that carries a guarantee of relevance.
The
concept of "manifestness" (39) is
central to Sperber and Wilson's theory - "What
visible phenomena are for visual cognition,
manifest facts are for conceptual cognition."
"Manifest" refers to what is "perceptible
or inferable" but not necessarily perceived
or inferred. The application of manifestness
can be extended from facts to "all assumptions",
assumptions (02) being defined as "thoughts
treated by the individual as representations
of the actual world (as opposed to fictions,
desires, or representations of representations)".
Assumptions are available to be made, but may
never be made, unless activated in the process
of a conversation. An assumption that Osama
bin Laden has never played golf with President
Bush is available to be made, is manifest, but
may never actually be made unless activated.
Based on the idea of "manifestness",
Sperber and Wilson (41) then suggest that "a
notion of mutual manifestness can be developed
which does not suffer from the same psychological
implausibility as "mutual knowledge"
or "mutual assumptions". "Mutual
manifestness" is further linked to the
notion of a "mutual cognitive environment"
which is "any shared cognitive environment
in which it is manifest which people share it".
A
mutual cognitive environment (41) (i.e. what
actually intersects in the cognitive environments
of two people) does not mean that two people
make the same assumptions, but "merely
that they are capable of doing so". Hence
a "mutually manifest assumption" is
not a "mutual assumption". One desired
result of intercultural communication, if not
of all communication, is to modify and to expand
mutual knowledge of each other's assumptions.
What is actually required, activated and made
mutual in a particular conversation is subject
to the appreciation and skill of participants
and is also subject to constant negotiation.
In
this sense the negotiation in the first data
extract fails. The challenge by the American
student (Where does it say I was drunk then?)
indicates that he has missed the relevance of
the Japanese student's assumption. JP1 however
immediately confirms its relevance in relation
to "Japanese Law", but does not convince
the American student, as some six minutes later
in the second extract a similar exchange is
initiated with unchanged assumptions. However,
the Japanese student's insistence on "in
Japan" allows us to conclude that he has
an inferential advantage in that he is aware
of an assumption that the American student does
not share.
Sperber
and Wilson (42) suggest that "the fact
that it [an assumption] is manifest to the people
who share the environment is itself manifest".
However, in intercultural conversation, the
possibility that an assumption is not even manifest
to a participant who does not share this part
of a cognitive environment should also be manifest,
available to be assumed, based on our experience
of intercultural conversation. We might then
also wonder if this is only true of intercultural
conversations. Sperber and Wilson (42) conclude
that "it is left to the communicator to
make correct assumptions about the codes and
contextual information the audience will have
accessible and be likely to use in the comprehension
process." We must therefore make assumptions
about which assumptions will be, and especially
will not be, mutually manifest. Sperber and
Wilson (45) "prefer to look at what kind
of assumptions people are actually in a position
to make about each other's assumptions, and
then see what this implies for an account of
communication", pointing out that "failures
are to be expected" as a normal part of
face to face communication. The assumption that
communication is governed by a "failsafe
procedure" is likely to exacerbate misunderstandings.
Indeed they state that "what is mysterious
and requires explanation is not failure but
success" (45). This is because of the very
nature of inferencing. "The addressee can
neither decode nor deduce the communicator's
communicative intention. The best he can do
is construct an assumption on the basis of the
evidence provided by the communicator's ostensive
behaviour. For such an assumption, there may
be confirmation but no proof." (65)
We
have already noted that the American student
did not consider the Japanese student's assumption
of the "drunkenness" of the Escort
driver as true or possibly true in any relevant
sense. (I didn't say he was drunk, I said he
had a drink.) The repeated act of ostension
by the Japanese student in the second extract
obliges the American student to re-consider
his assumption. The strong ostensive behaviour
of the Japanese student has successfully made
the American student recognize the relevance
of the contribution "you were drunk"
in spite of the fact that this contradicts the
background assumption his own argument was grounded
in and his assumption that language was the
major problem of understanding. Skilled intercultural
negotiation involves bringing out into the open,
ostensibly making manifest or available for
inference what is not shared. The discovery
of radically opposing assumptions may represent
the cultural equivalent of an electric shock.
In this context, the American student, a hitherto
able and articulate negotiator with considerable
intercultural experience, admitted (in later
analysis) that he was "paralysed",
leading him to accept a very high percentage
of blame for his driver with little further
negotiation.
Brown
and Levinson (1987: 05) characterize Grice's
model as an " 'unmarked' or socially neutral
(indeed asocial) presumptive framework for communication,
the essential assumption is 'no deviation from
rational efficiency without a reason'".
It is, however, difficult to imagine any framework
as being truly "neutral" in a socio-cultural
sense. No theorist can be immune to ethnocentric
bias. To use any such framework as an aid to
intercultural analysis, we need to distance
ourselves from any assumptions that the maxims
operate alone or represent context-independent,
universal normative values. A potentially serious
problem of the maxims is that it is difficult
to extricate notions such as the notion of "truth"
embodied in the maxim of quality from a culturally
influenced moral value. Nevertheless, Grice
does make a distinction, classifying maxims
of morality beyond the range of his maxims of
rationality. "There are, of course, all
sorts of other maxims (aesthetic, social, or
moral in character) such as "Be polite"
that are all normally observed by participants
in talk exchanges, and these may also generate
nonconventional implicatures." (1989: 28,
my italics.)
By
refining the "untenable" notion of
"common background knowledge", Sperber
and Wilson invite us to look beyond the Cooperative
Principle or the maxims, to consider the impossibility
of mutual assumptions about "the accepted
purpose or direction of the talk exchange in
which you are engaged". They emphasize
inferencing as highly complex skilled behaviour
which is often unsuccessful. Our extract indicates
that even extensive experience accompanied by
training in awareness and flexibility are no
guarantees of success. The less confident we
are of success in perceiving what is mutually
manifest, the more likely we are to reach mutually
acceptable compromises at critical moments in
intercultural negotiations.
Appendix 1
Group Negotiation - Preparation Sheet
You
are the insurance agent for the driver. You
have to negotiate with the insurance companies
of the other drivers. The aim of your negotiation
is to decide the % of blame for each driver.
Your company would like to pay as little as
possible, but would like to settle out of court.
1.
Try to defend your driver.
2. Try to accuse the other drivers.
3. Negotiate the percentage each driver's insurance
should
pay.
This
is a very important negotiation for your company.
Before the discussion prepare your information
carefully in the table below. Write the percentage
you can accept in the 3rd column before you
negotiate.
.......................Mistakes..........
% of blame ......%
of blame negotiated
Truck Driver
Mini Driver
VW Driver
Escort Driver
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