8.1 Conversational and conventional implicatures

Conversational and Conventional Implicatures

People regularly communicate more than what their words literally say. Conversational and conventional implicatures are two ways this happens, and understanding the difference between them is central to pragmatics. Conversational implicatures arise from context and the cooperative principle, while conventional implicatures are baked into specific words or grammatical structures.

Conversational vs. Conventional Implicatures

Conversational implicatures depend on the context of the conversation and the speaker's intentions. They arise because speakers and hearers generally follow Grice's cooperative principle: the assumption that people try to be helpful, truthful, relevant, and clear in conversation. When a speaker appears to violate one of Grice's maxims, the hearer infers an unstated meaning to make the utterance cooperative again. These implicatures are not attached to any particular word or phrase.

Conventional implicatures work differently. They're triggered by specific lexical items (words) or grammatical constructions, and they contribute the same additional meaning every time those items are used, regardless of context. They don't depend on the cooperative principle at all.

Features of Conversational Implicatures

Three properties set conversational implicatures apart:

• Cancellability means you can explicitly deny the implicature without creating a contradiction. For example, "Some of the students passed the exam" normally implicates not all of them did. But the speaker can add "...in fact, all of them did" and there's no contradiction. The implicature simply gets cancelled.
• Non-detachability means the implicature isn't tied to a particular word or phrase. If you swap in a synonym, the same implicature follows. "John has three children" and "John has a trio of offspring" both carry the implicature of exactly three children. The implicature travels with the content, not the specific wording.
• Calculability means the hearer can work out the implicature step by step using the cooperative principle and the four maxims (quantity, quality, relevance, manner). The hearer notices that the speaker seems to be flouting or observing a maxim in a particular way, and reasons from there to the intended meaning.

Lexical Aspects of Conventional Implicatures

Conventional implicatures are part of the conventional meaning of certain words or constructions. They don't need to be calculated from context; they come along automatically.

• The word "but" carries a conventional implicature of contrast. "She is tired but happy" asserts both that she is tired and that she is happy, while implicating that there's a contrast between the two. That contrast meaning is always present when "but" is used, not just in certain contexts.
• The word "even" conventionally implicates that something is surprising or unexpected. "Even John passed" asserts that John passed and implicates that John passing was surprising.
• Certain grammatical constructions work the same way. "John managed to solve the problem" asserts that John solved it, but the verb "managed" conventionally implicates that it was difficult for him. Compare this to the neutral "John solved the problem," which carries no such implicature.

Because these implicatures are built into the words themselves, they remain constant across different contexts and are not derived from the cooperative principle or maxims.

Implicature Analysis in Context

Working through examples step by step is the best way to get comfortable identifying and classifying implicatures.

Conversational implicature example:

1. A asks B: "Are you going to the party tonight?"
2. B responds: "I have to study for an exam."
3. B's response doesn't directly answer the question, which appears to flout the maxim of relevance.
4. To preserve the assumption that B is being cooperative, A infers: B is not going to the party tonight.
5. This implicature is cancellable: B could follow up with "But I'll still go for a little while" without any contradiction.

Conventional implicature example:

1. Sentence: "Even John could solve the problem."
2. The word "even" triggers the implicature that it was unexpected or surprising that John could solve it.
3. This implicature is not cancellable: saying "Even John could solve the problem, and it was not surprising at all" creates a contradiction, because the surprise meaning is built into "even."

Analyzing implicatures this way helps you distinguish between what a sentence literally says (its semantic content) and the additional pragmatic meaning a speaker conveys. The key diagnostic question is always: Can the extra meaning be cancelled without contradiction? If yes, you're likely dealing with a conversational implicature. If no, it's probably conventional.