HERBERT PAUL GRICE, "CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE," THE OXFORD LECTURES, 1966, BANC MSS 90/135c

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Grice’s theory of conversational implicature is an attempt to systematically describe how it is possible for language users to convey (and mean) more – or something di↵erent – than the truth-conditional content of an utterance. Grice (1975) distinguishes between what is said and what is implicated. What is said corresponds to the truth-conditional meaning of an utterance and what is implicated to what a speaker conveys by uttering a certain string of words in a certain context, being aware of (though perhaps not in a metasense) the principle of cooperation and four maxims of rational and ecient communication. In the exchange in (16) below, B’s reply that there is a garage round the corner would not be very helpful if B were lying about there being a garage, lying about where the garage is situated, aware of or had good reason to believe that the garage is closed, or aware that the garage does not sell petrol. 18CHAPTER 2. ENTHYMEMES, TOPOI, PRAGMATIC PHENOMENA (16) a. A: I am out of petrol b. B: There is a garage around the corner c. + > The garage is open, it has petrol to sell, etc. (Grice, 1975) Because of the above mentioned principle of cooperation – 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 (Grice, 1975) – A expects B’s utterance to be a relevant, truthful and complete reply. Grice specifies the assumptions of the cooperative principle further in the four maxims of conversation (paraphrased): 1 Quantity: Make your contribution informative enough, but do not say more than is required 2 Quality: Be truthful, or at least only say what you believe to be true 3 Relation: Be relevant 4 Manner: Be orderly, avoid ambiguity, etc. By adhering to, or blatantly ignoring (flouting) the maxims and the cooperative principle, a speaker may express a lot more than the truthconditional content of his/her utterance. So, Grice would say that we would interpret (16b) as implicating that the garage is open (or at least that the speaker believes this) due to the maxim of relation. Since the information that there is a garage around the corner would otherwise be irrelevant. Let us now consider (17), which we looked at in the previous section. In Gricean terms it could be analysed something like this: (17) a. A: Let’s walk along Walnut Street. b. A: It’s shorter. c. + > Walnut Street being shorter is a good reason for choosing Walnut Street. Due to the maxim of relation, we as language users want to interpret (17b) as a relevant contribution. One way of doing this would be to interpret 2.3. CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE 19 it as a relevant reason for choosing Walnut Street. However, it seems to us that we need something more than the principle of cooperation and the maxims to get at the correct implicature in (17). We can illustrate this by comparing (17) with the similar dialogue (18): (18) a. A: Let’s walk along Walnut Street. b. A: It’s longer. c. + > ?? Now, by simply applying the cooperative principle and the maxims B might be able to infer that (18b) is relevant in relation to (18a). However, if the B’s resources do not include a topos underpinning (18b) as a premise in an argument for choosing Walnut Street – such as longer routes are better or it is preferable to do spend longer time doing things – it would be hard for B to arrive at a relevant interpretation. This is of course context dependent, there are some things that we like spending as long time as possible doing, and if walking is one of them, it is natural that a longer route is preferred. If B knew that A is always interested in getting exercise, which of course would be provided in greater meassures by a longer route, B might also be able to make a relevant interpretation of (18). However, considering the notions most of us have about comfort, eciency, etc. (17) seems like less of a stretch unless the context is set up in a specific way. So, even if the maxims tell us that we should try to interpret contributions as relevant, true, etc. in order to do this we need some underpinning in the form of a pattern of reasoning – a topos – that fits in with the contribution we are trying to make sense of. If we consider yet another manipulation of our original example, this is even more clear: (19) a. Let’s walk along Walnut Street. b. In the European Union, labour market conditions showed no signs of improvement during 2013. c. + > ?? The contribution in (19b) seems very dicult to make sense of and would probably be taken as relating to an earlier topos or as A abruptly changing the subject. However, even this contribution would probably – under particular circumstances – be possible to interpret as relevant. So, it seems as if we use some notions corresponding to Grice’s principle of cooperation and maxims to interpet enthymemes. However, even if we 20CHAPTER 2. ENTHYMEMES, TOPOI, PRAGMATIC PHENOMENA strive to make a relevant interpretation of a contribution, we need access to some underpinning pattern or topos to actually make a relevant interpretation. If we do not have access to relevant topoi, or if the contribution contains too little information to point us in the right direction of a relevant topos we have diculty making a relevant interpretation. In cases like these we may get additional information by making a clarification request. Imagine for example a context of (16) where B would be totally unaware that you can buy petrol in a garage. The dialogue in (16) could then play out like in (20): (20) a. A: I am out of petrol b. B: There is a garage around the corner c. A: What do you mean garage – I need to buy petrol? d. B: They sell petrol e. A: ah – ok! To conclude it seems like the principles suggested by Grice lead us in some cases to infer that a speaker means something more than what is said. However, if we have access to relevant topoi we can understand not only that something is implicated but what is implicated. If we, on the contrary, do not have access to a topos that fits the discourse, it is dicult for us to make sense of an utterance where part of the meaning is conversationally implicated.