An introduction to English semantics and pragmatics.

8 Pragmatics
8.1 Conversational implicatures
Conversational implicature are inferences that depend on the
existence of norm for the use of language, such as the widespread
agreement that communicators should aim to tell the truth.
Conversational implicatures are implied by the speaker in making an
utterance; are part of the content of the utterance, but do not contribute
to direct (or explicit) utterance content and are not encoded by the
linguistic meaning of what has been uttered.

A: Are you having some of this chocolate cake?

B: I’m on a diet.
“B” asserts that she is on a diet and implicates something different:
that she is not having cake.

Grice (1975 and elsewhere) identified some of the communicational

norms and showed how they are involved in the reasoning that makes
it possible for utterances to convey rather more than is literally
encoded in the underlying sentences. He proposed that four “maxims”
could be regarded as the basis for co-operative communication.
Quality – try to be truthful when communicating.
Quantity – give appropriate amounts of information, not too little and
not too much.
Manner – utterances should be clear: brief, orderly and not obscure.
Relevance – contributions should be relevant to the assumed current
goals of the people involved.
Maxims of Quality (be truthful)
There is one supermaxim of quality:
 Try to make your contribution one that is true.
Furthermore, based on this supermaxim, there are two more-specific
maxims of quality (sometimes referred to as submaxims):
 Do not say what you believe to be false. Avoid stating information
that you believe might be wrong, unless there is some compelling
reason to do so. If you do choose to include it, then provide a
disclaimer that points your doubts regarding this information.
 Do not say that for which you lack evidence. Avoid including
information that you can’t back up with supporting evidence. If
you do choose to include such information for some reason,
provide a disclaimer that points out your doubts.

Maxims of Quantity (be informative)

There are two maxims of quantity:
 Make your contribution as informative as is required. Provide all
the information which is necessary for the purpose of the current
exchange; don’t leave out anything important.
 Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
Leave out any unnecessary details that aren’t important to the
current exchange.
Example:
A: How do I get from here to the library?
B: Keep walking straight until you reach the intersection, and then turn
right.
The expected answer should contain enough information for them to
understand how to get to the library, but no more information than that.
Maxims of Manner (be clear)
There is one supermaxim of manner:
 Be perspicuous [clear].
There are various additional maxims of manner (sometimes referred to
as submaxims), that are based on this supermaxim. Grice lists four
specific ones in his original work:
 Avoid obscurity of expression. Avoid language which is difficult to
understand, such as because it contains words that the listener
doesn’t know.
 Avoid ambiguity. Avoid ambiguous language which can be
interpreted in multiple ways, and which therefore makes it difficult
for your recipient to understand what exactly you’re trying to say.
 Be brief. Provide information in a concise manner, that allows
your recipient to focus on the key details.
 Be orderly. Provide information in an order that makes sense and
makes it easy for your recipient to process it.
Examples:
a. Helen switched the lights off.
b. Helen caused the lights to go off. +> ‘She did it in an unusual way’
The in- direct causative (b) is longer than the direct causative (a).
Both sentences entail that the lights went off. The normal way to
make lights go off is to operate the switch.

Maxim of Relevance (be relevant)

There is one maxim of relevance:
 Be relevant. Make sure that all the information you provide is
relevant to the current exchange; omit irrelevant information.
Grice uses the following analogy to illustrate the importance of this
maxim:
“I expect a partner’s contribution to be appropriate to the immediate
needs at each stage of the transaction. If I am mixing ingredients for a
cake, I do not expect to be handed a good book, or even an oven cloth
(though this might be an appropriate contribution at a later stage).”
Example:
A: (Picking up a book from a display in a bookshop) “Have you read
Long Walk to Freedom?”
B: “I find autobiographies fascinating.”
+> ‘Long Walk to Freedom is an autobiography’
+>‘Yes, I have read it’
A asked about Long Walk to Freedom. B talks about autobiographies.
A asked whether B had read the book. B talks about what she finds
fascinating. One might think that B had ignored the question, but the
conversation can be read as co-operative and coherent by trying to
work out how B’s contribution could be relevant to A’s question. If the
book is an autobiography, then B has not switched topics. Asked about
a book that you have read, it is customary to offer an evaluation. If
Long Walk to Freedom is an autobiography then, by saying that she
finds autobiographies fascinating, B could be taken as evaluating it.
And maybe her knowing that the book is autobiographical came from
reading it.

General points about implicature