CONVENTIONAL AND CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE (MS KIM PHUNG)

How should we think about the discrepancies between logical and conventional meaning? Grice introduced the term implicature in order to talk about these different facets of what we might call (informally) the meaning of an expression. The introduction of this term is a way of generalizing over the different types of communicative intention which hearers attribute to speakers: the implicatures of an utterance are what it is necessary to believe the speaker is thinking, and intending the hearer to think, in order to account for what they are saying. Some of these implicatures, like the implicature of contrast carried by but, are conventional implicatures: they are part of the typical force of the word, whether or not they conform to its strict, truth-conditional (logically defined) meaning. Conventional implicatures are what we might otherwise refer to as the standard or typical meanings of linguistic expressions. Other implicatures are conversational. Conversational implicatures are those that arise in particular contexts of use, without forming part of the word's characteristic or conventional force: the choice of the term 'conversational' is explained by the fact that Grice's examples are mostly taken from imagined conversations.

Here are some examples of exchanges involving conversational implicatures; in all of them, the sentence meaning of B's reply has no direct connection to A's question: it is the implicated utterance meaning which contains the answer:

(1) A: Have you read Sebald?

B: I haven't read the back of the cereal packet.

(2) A: Do you know how to get to rue du Pasteur Wagner?

B: I've got a map in my bag.

(3) A: Do you like anchovies?

B: Does a hippo like mud?

In (1) B implicates that he hasn't read anything by Sebald, since he hasn't even read the back of the cereal packet. In (2) B implicates that he does not know how to get to the rue du Pasteur Wagner, but that he is prepared to consult his map for directions. In (3) B implicates that since the answer to his question is 'yes', then the answer to A's question is also 'yes' and that, as a result, he does indeed like anchovies. In all these cases, what is implied goes beyond the conventional meanings of the words used. The sentence I haven't read the back of the cereal packet is not usually able to convey the information 'I haven't read Sebald'; in the context of this conversation, however, this is precisely the information which it does convey. In order to understand the use of language in real communicative exchanges, therefore, it is essential to develop some analysis of the ways in which implicatures like these arise.