Conversational Implicature and Relevance Theory
This paper provides and overview of Grice's Theory of Conversational Implicature and then compares it with Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory. A critique of the two theories finds that the work of Sperber and Wilson provides an incremental improvement of Grice's work, but still falls short in fully explaining communications.
Grice's Theory of Conversational Implicature
Grice proposes that participants in conversation understand the "Cooperative Principle" to be in force: "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." This principle comprises the following rules:
Maxims of Quantity: 1. Make your contribution as informative as is required 2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
Maxims of Quality: Try to make your contribution one that is true. 1. Do not say what you believe to be false. 2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence
III. Maxim of Relation: Be relevant.
IV. Maxims of Manner: Be perspicuous. 1. Avoid obscurity / of expression. 2. Avoid ambiguity. 3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity). 4. Be orderly.
Some implicatures flout a maxim so as to invoke another maxim as a ground of interpretation. And, there is an implicature, which involves no maxim-violation at all, but simply invokes a maxim as a ground of interpretation. For example, if one person says "I am out of gas," and another says "There is a gas station around the corner," the response implicates, by invoking the maxim of Relation, that the person thinks it possible that the station is open and has gas to…
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