HP Grice, in his theory of conversational implicature, demonstrated the strong dependence of linguistic communication on contextual cues (Grice, 1975). In “Logic and Conversation” (1975), he states: “Make your contribution to the conversation as required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the purpose or accepted direction of the exchange of words in which you are engaged.” This cooperative principle (CP) states that participants in a conversation will tailor their contributions to the conversation to further its purpose. Most conversations follow the cooperative principle in that the speaker wants to convey his intention and the listener wants to understand the speaker's intentions. Situations where the cooperative principle is not in force are more unusual or artificial. The legal system in the United States can create situations where participants in a conversation are not operating under CP. While the court's purpose is ostensibly to uncover the truth and serve justice, the prosecution and defense clearly disagree on the purpose of their statements. In this essay I will explore the ways in which lawyers, witnesses, law enforcement officials, and suspects exploit the tension between the artificial environment of the courtroom with its strictly defined rules and the expected norms of conversation for their own ends. The first example where lawyers and witnesses manipulate expectations through implicature. Grice defined the concept of “implicature” as something other than the literal meaning of spoken sentences that occurs when participants in a conversation observe the CP. Grice defined four fundamental rules that fall within the principle of cooperation:1. Maxim of Quality – Be sincere2. Quan's maxim...... middle of paper ...... o.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/entries/implicature/.Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In A. P. Martinich (ed.). The philosophy of language (pp. 171-181). New York: Oxford University Press. Searle, J. R. (1975). Indirect speech acts. In A. P. Martinich (ed.). The philosophy of language (pp. 182-195). New York: Oxford University Press. Shuy, R. W. (2005). Creating language crimes: How law enforcement uses (and abuses) language. New York: Oxford University Press. Shuy, R. W. (1993). Language crimes: the use and abuse of language tests in the classroom. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Solan, L.M., & Tiersma, P.M. (2005). “Consensual” research. Talking about crime: The language of criminal justice (pp. 35-52). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Tiersma, Peter. (1999). The Language of Perjury, excerpted from http://www.lingualandlaw.org/PERJURY.HTM