A question about pragmatics

The problem with using Grice to interpret actual discourse as if we could easily map each item exactly onto one of those maxims is that it's going beyond the original intention. Grice did not base it on extensive analysis of a corpus of conversation but rather in response to very specific problems with the traditional truth-conditional or more generally formalist logical semantics, namely those of logical inference. His point was that his theory of implicature can rescue seemingly divergent statements from being outside the realm of traditional logical inference.

As a result, in practice, we can find several maxims violated with analysts rarely in agreement as to which one is the most likely culprit. However, this never matters because these are not 'real' maxims that actually empirically govern human conversations. However, they very nicely delineate the realm in which speakers background knowledge is used to make sense of discourse.

This brief discourse could simultaneously be said to violate:

1. No maxim at all. The conversation was fully informative for both parties (as I have witnessed in real life many times).

2. Maxim of quality. To help identify the hyperbole.

3. Maxim of quantity. To account for the fact, that while the first speaker's hyperbole is understood, they are likely interested in more information to make their own decision.

4. Maxim of relation - depending on the relationship of the two interlocutors. A parent may be less happy with this answer form a child than a partner with whom this may be an established conversational pattern.

5. Maxim of manner. If the context does not make it clear whether this is a hyperbole or a literal statement.

Which one of these I choose depends on background knowledge as well as what sort of thing I'm trying to analyze about the conversation. Am I trying to look at traditional truth-conditional values of each conversation? Then most likely, 2 is the answer I will find more useful. Am I trying to analyze presupposition or power relations? The it will be one of the others. The one downside of Grice's maxim's is that often what is useful about them is lost in pointless quarreling about irrelevant minutia.