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GRICE ON CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURES
Or, a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat
THE BACKGROUNDNatural language diverges from the formal
language of First-Order Logic in a number of ways: Ambiguity: words in natural language can have
more than one meaning, where terms in a formal language can have only one (e.g. ‘bank’ vs. ‘bank’ & ‘Bx’ vs. ‘Fx’)
Modality: truth-functionality concerns behavior with respect to the way things are, and modality concerns the way things could be; therefore, modal contexts are not truth-functional and so cannot be described by FOL (‘I could have been taller’ has no FOL translation)
The behavior of the connectives
THE BACKGROUND
(1a) Britney married Kevin and she got pregnant. (1b) Britney got pregnant and she married Kevin.
Different in ordinary language Same Formal translations!
(2) Do you want coffee or tea? Formal translation allows for both; natural does
not
(3) Some students aced the exam. Formally, compatible with *all* students doing
so
THE BACKGROUNDSome explain the differences semantically: the logical ‘and’ and the ordinary ‘and’ have different meanings – hence the ‘difference’ between (1a) and (1b)!
Formalists: so much the worse for the ordinary notion of ‘and’!
Informalists: so much the worse for the logical notion of ‘and’!
Grice intends to show that the tension between the formalist and informalist is merely apparent: (1a) and (1b) say the same thing but differ in what they convey
MEANING, SAYING, & CONVEYINGGrice divides what is meant into (1) what is said and (2) what is (conversationally) conveyed.
What is said primarily turns on the meanings of the expressions employed
What is conveyed turns on conventions or maxims of rational behaviour concerning expression employment
Let’s have a brief example to illustrate…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxFYwNLv67s
A second example, for those interested:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT3_UCm1A5I
MEANING, SAYING, & CONVEYINGTim: How is Harry getting on in his new job?Rob: Quite well, I think – he likes his colleagues,
and he hasn’t been to prison yet.
Difference between what Rob says (that Harry hasn’t been to prison yet ) and what Rob meant (e.g, that Harry is likely to break the law).
What is said is closely tied to truth-conditions – Rob’s assertion is true only if Harry hasn’t been to prison yet. So, everything Rob meant but did not say (conveyed) could be false without impugning the truth of Rob’s assertion
MEANING, SAYING, & CONVEYINGHe is an Englishman; he is, therefore brave.
‘I have certainly committed myself, by virtue of the meaning of my words, to its being the case that his being brave is a consequence of his being an Englishman.’
‘I have said that he is an Englishman, and said that he is brave.’
‘I do not want to say that I have said (in the favored sense) that it follows from his being an Englishman that he is brave; though I have certainly indicated, and so implicated, that this is so.’
‘I do not want to say that my utterance of this sentence would be, strictly speaking, false should the consequence in question fail to hold.’
MEANING, SAYING, & CONVEYINGRecommendation letter:
To Whom it May Concern,
Dr. Wildman’s command of English is excellent, and his attendance at tutorials has been regular. Further, he is highly competent at tying shoes (both his own and others).
Yours, Professor (Emeritus) D.H. Mellor Pembroke & Darwin CollegesUniversity of Cambridge
CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE A conversational implicature is generated by
general rules of conversation, as applied to a particular conversational circumstance
A conventional implicature is generated by meanings of words used (and so is a semantic, not a pragmatic, phenomenon)
Grice thought that assertions of ‘A and B’ and ‘A but B’ say the same thing (one is true iff the other is), but the latter and not the former conventionally implicates some contrast (‘She’s poor and honest’ vs. ‘She’s poor but honest’)
CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURESAccording to Grice, communication is a cooperative, rational activity. As such, if one is to communicate successfully, one should do so in accord with:
The Cooperative Principle: ‘Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage of the conversation at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose of direction of the talk exchange in which you find yourself.’
Grice thinks CP governs our conversational practice. He tentatively suggests but does not endorse an explanation (that CP is ‘a quasi-contractual, with parallels outside the realm of discourse’)
CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURESCP gives rise to Four Maxims:
Maxim of Quantity: Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange; do not make it more informative than is required
Maxim of Quality: Try to make your contribution one that is true; do not say what you believe to be false, do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence
Maxim of Relevance: Be relevant • This ‘conceals a number of problems that exercise me
a great deal’ Maxim of Manner: Be perspicuous - avoid
obscurity of expression, avoid ambiguity; Be brief, be orderly.
CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURESWhat one means corresponds to the assumptions needed to maintain the supposition that one abides by CP and the Four Maxims.
‘There are, of course, all sorts of other maxims (aesthetic, social or moral in character), such as ‘Be
polite’, that are also normally observed by participants in talk exchanges, and these may also generate
nonconventional implicatures. … The conversational maxims, however, and the conversational implicatures connected with them, are specially connected (I hope)
with the particular purposes that talk (and so talk exchange) is adapted to serve and is primarily employed
to serve.’
CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURESThe Maxims have analogues in non-talk exchanges:
‘[O]ne of my avowed aims is to see talking as a special case or variety of purposive, indeed rational,
behavior.’ Quantity: In mending a car, if at a particular stage, I
need four screws, I expect you to hand me four, not six or two.
Quality: If I need sugar as an ingredient for a cake, I expect you to hand me sugar, not salt.
Relevance: If I am mixing ingredients for a cake, I do not expect to be handed a good book.
Manner: I expect a partner to make it clear what contribution he is making, and to execute his performance with reasonable dispatch.
CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURESWays of failing to fulfill a Maxim/CP
1. Quietly & unostentatiously VIOLATE a maxim
2. OPT OUT from the operation of the maxim – indicate one’s unwillingness to cooperate in the way that the maxim requires
3. CLASH – fulfill one maxim while violating another
4. FLOUT, i.e., blatantly fail to fulfill, a maxim. The hearer is then faced with the problem of reconciling what is said with the supposition of CP.
CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURESConversational implicatures are generated by a
speaker’s presumed adherence to CP & the Maxims
A speaker S’s saying that p conversationally implicates that q iff:(i) The speaker S is to be presumed to be
observing at least CP, and possibly the maxims as well;
(ii) The supposition that S is aware that q is needed to make his saying p consistent with (i);
(iii) S thinks (and would expect the audience to think) that it is within the audience’s competence to work out that (ii) is required
CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURES Al: I’m out of petrol. Barry: There’s a station around the corner.
Barry’s assertion conversationally implicates that the station is open, because it’s only by attributing the belief that the garage is open to Barry that we can regard him as (i) obeying CP and (ii) adhering to the Maxim of Relevance – if Barry didn’t think the garage was open, why mention the station at all?
Similarly for Al’s assertion – what does it implicate?
CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURESThe hearer will rely on the following data:
1. The conventional meaning of the words used, together with the identity of an references that may be involved.
2. The CP and its Maxims.3. The context, linguistic or otherwise, of the
utterance.4. Other items of background knowledge.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.
CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURESGeneral pattern for working out a
conversational implicature:
‘He has said that p; there is no reason to suppose that he is not observing the maxims, or at least the CP; he could not be doing this unless he thought that q; he knows (and knows that I know that he knows) that I can see that the supposition that he thinks that q is required; he has done nothing to stop me thinking that q; he intends me to think, or is at least willing to allow me to think, that q; Therefore, he has implicated that q.’
CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURES Conversational implicatures are not licensed by
sentences, but by speakers’ actions (i.e., speech acts), serving to make sense of what the speaker is doing. They are not inherently linguistic in nature, but to be accounted for by a general theory of rational cooperative behavior.
Methodological corollary: If an inference can be explained in terms of conversational implicature, then (ceteris paribus) such an explanation is to be preferred.
Conversational implicatures are abductive inferences.
GENERATING IMPLICATURESConversational implicatures can be generated in
three ways:
1. No maxim is (clearly) violated Garage example
Girlfriend example: A: Smith doesn’t seem to have a girlfriend these
days. B: He’s been paying a lot of visits to New York
lately.
GENERATING IMPLICATURES2. A maxim is violated by clashing with another
In the South of France example (Quantity vs. Quality!)
A is planning a holiday with B in France, and wants to see their friend C if it’s not too far out of the way.
A: Where does C live? B: Somewhere in the South of France
GENERATING IMPLICATURES3. A maxim is straightforwardly flouted Flouting Quantity:
Recommendation example
Flouting Quality: Irony (‘You are a fine friend’) Metaphor (‘You are the cream in my coffee’) Understatement (‘He is a bit drunk’) Hyperbole (‘Every nice girl loves sailor’)
GENERATING IMPLICATURES Flouting Relevance
Tea party example:A: Mrs. X is an old bag B: [after appalled silence] The weather has been dreadful this summer, hasn’t it?
Flouting Manner. Intentional Ambiguity (Blake’s poetry example) Obscurity (I-C-E-C-R-E-A-M example) Prolixity (Singer example – ‘B produced a series of
sounds that closely corresponds with the score of ‘Home Sweet Home’’)
DISTINGUISHING IMPLICATURESParticularized Conversational Implicatures: ‘… cases in which an implicature is carried by saying that p on a particular occasion in virtue of special features of the context, cases in which there is no room for the idea that an implicature of this sort is normally carried by saying that p’
Generalized Conversational Implicatures: ‘Sometimes one can say that the use of a certain form of words in a utterance would normally (in the absence of special circumstances) carry such-and-such an implicature or type of implicature’
DISTINGUISHING IMPLICATURESGeneralized Conversational Implicatures:
X is meeting a woman this evening Implicated: the person to be met was someone other
than X’s wife.
X went into a house yesterday and found a tortoise inside the front door. Implicated: the house (and the totroise) was not X’s
own.
Use of the form of expression an X often implicates that the X does not belong to or is not otherwise closely connected with some identifiable person
CHARACTERIZING IMPLICATURESCharacteristics of conversational implicatures
Calculability: Listeners must be capable of working out the implicature for themselves (Otherwise, it would be a conventional implicature or nothing at all)
Cancellability: You can explicitly or contextually ‘cancel’ a conversational implicature (suppose Barry follows up the above Garage conversation with, ‘…though I don’t know if it’s open.’)
CHARACTERIZING IMPLICATURES Nondetachability: the same implicature would be
generated if the speaker said the same thing in a different way (note: doesn’t always apply to implicatures that rely on Maxim of Manner).a. Some of the stewardesses were snoring.b. At least two of the stewardesses were snoring.
Non-conventionality: Initially at least, conversational implications are not part of the meaning of the expressions to the employment of which they attach – the implicature is not carried by what is said, but only by the saying of what is said, or by ‘putting it that way.’
GRICE’S GENERAL PICTUREA General Picture of ‘What is Meant’
TWO SAMPLE OBJECTIONSLevinson’s Objection. Suppose H asks S ‘Do any athletes smoke?’ If S answered ‘Some do,’ S would typically implicate that not all smoke. A logically equivalent answer, however, would be ‘Yes.’ But if S gave that answer, S would not typically implicate that not all athletes smoke (quite the opposite!). A ‘Yes’ answer leaves it open whether or not all athletes smoke. Since a speaker who answers a yes-no question ‘Yes’ is being fully cooperative, CP cannot require the speaker who answers ‘Some do’ to provide any more information than ‘Yes’ provides.
Explanatory Objection. We determine what is conversationally implicated by way of Grice’s maxims only because we already have a prior grasp of what is implicated. Thus Grice’s account is backwards!
