"Grice's Theory of Implicature" Lalić, Ema Luna Undergraduate thesis / Završni rad 2020 Degree Grantor / Ustanova koja je dodijelila akademski / stručni stupanj: University of Rijeka, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences / Sveučilište u Rijeci, Filozofski fakultet Permanent link / Trajna poveznica: https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:186:320523 Rights / Prava: In copyright Download date / Datum preuzimanja: 2021-10-01 Repository / Repozitorij: Repository of the University of Rijeka, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences - FHSSRI Repository UNIVERSITY OF RIJEKA FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES RIJEKA DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY GRICE’S THEORY OF IMPLICATURE STUDENT: Ema Luna Lalić MENTOR: dr. sc. Martina Blečić Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 2 The development of Grice’s theory of implicature ................................................................................. 4 The Cooperative Principle and four categories of conversational maxims ............................................ 7 The Cooperative Principle ................................................................................................................... 7 Four categories of conversational maxims ......................................................................................... 8 Conversational and conventional implicature ...................................................................................... 13 Conversational implicature ............................................................................................................... 14 Conventional Implicature .................................................................................................................. 19 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 21 References ............................................................................................................................................ 22 Abstract This paper is an overview of the theory of implicature by Herbert Paul Grice, as it is an important concept in philosophy of language. It is an action of suggesting a meaning that goes beyond the literal understanding of the utterance. Grice distinguished between two general types of implicatures: conversational and conventional. Conversational implicature has two subtypes: particularized and generalized conversational implicature. This paper examines the distinction between two and elaborates on the theoretical background of the linguistic phenomenon. It also provides an account of the Cooperative Principle and Grice’s conversational maxims, which are vital contributors to the theory. The maxims are divided into four categories and analysed in terms of the consequences for not observing them. Keywords: implicature, conversation, meaning, philosophy of language, context, pragmatics 1 Introduction English philosopher Herbert Paul Grice (1913-1988) is regarded as one of the most influential philosophers of language. His contribution to the study of meaning continues to inspire philosophers and linguists to this day and has resulted in the establishment of theories of Gricean and neo-Gricean pragmatics (Chapman 2005, p. 207-208). In addition, his influence is evident in opposing theories, such as relevance theory by Sperber and Wilson, which is a substantial departure from Grice’s original theory, but is greatly motivated by it (Sperber and Wilson 2012, p.5). Grice was a very versatile philosopher, his interests ranging from metaphysical inquiry about perception, ethics and studying Kant and Plato. Grice’s most prominent ideas were published posthumously in a collection of essays Studies in the Way of Words (1989). The first part of Studies in the Way of Words, called Logic and Conversation, is an assortment of his William James lectures at Harvard University in 1967. In Logic and Conversation, Grice proposes his theory of meaning and implicature. Implicature is a word coined by Grice himself and counts as one of the most important concepts of his philosophical career. It refers to the “action of implying a meaning beyond the literal sense of what is explicitly stated” (Oxford Online Dictionary Lexico). This paper is an overview of Grice’s theory of implicature. The first section of the paper will examine the development of the theory of implicature by identifying Grice’s general stance on relevant issues in philosophy of language. One of them pertains to the distinction between ordinary language philosophy (OLP) and ideal language philosophy (ILP). In this section I will also provide a brief outline of Grice’s theory of meaning. The second section deals with the concepts of the Cooperative Principle and four categories of conversational maxims, which are vital for understanding of the theory of implicature. After specifying the nature of maxims, I will provide an account of the ways speakers fail to observe them. The last section of the paper is a clarification of two types of 2 conversational implicature, as well as an analysis of conventional implicature. In this section I will provide my examples of implicatures, along with those put forward by Grice. 3 The development of Grice’s theory of implicature In the Preface to Studies in the Way of Words, Grice reveals that his philosophical approach is to be concerned with ordinary language. Ordinary language philosophy belongs to linguistic philosophy and examines natural language (as opposed to formal language) by focusing on instances of its everyday use (Blackburn 1996, p. 329). In order to understand the development of Grice’s theory of implicature and meaning, it is important to shed light upon the difference between ordinary language philosophy and ideal language philosophy. It was one of the most important topics of philosophical debate in analytic philosophy in Grice’s period of influence, and continues to be today. The difference between ordinary language philosophy and ideal language philosophy is a matter of methodology in regards to philosophical inquiry. As Lüthi (2006, p.250) points out, philosophers who adhere to ideal language philosophy (ILP) hold the view that the subject of philosophical inquiry should be the language used in the domains of natural and formal sciences, i.e. philosophy’s central task should be to provide an analysis of scientific propositions (statements). Ideal language philosophers maintain that ordinary language is often too ambiguous, unclear and misguided, whereas formal languages of logic and mathematics are concise and structurally rounded. Ordinary language philosophy (OLP), on the other hand, focuses on ordinary language use, i.e. how regular people usually use language in its everyday, non-scientific form (Lüthi 2006, p. 250). That does not mean that OLP denies the value of scientific discourse, just that it is not a foundation of its investigation. 4 Ordinary language philosophy was a dominant approach at Oxford, where Grice built his philosophical career. He was a part of that movement, in terms of implementing similar methods as ordinary language philosophers, but he also criticized OLP’s tendency not to “distinguish semantic and pragmatic implications” (Neale 1992, p.9). In other words, he claimed that it was of utmost importance to clarify the subtleties of linguistic meaning as well as to determine the difference between the standard meaning of an utterance and the meaning speaker intends to convey. He sought to devise an approach to language that would incorporate different kinds of language analyses. Chapman (2005, p. 90) states that Grice’s idea that the distinction between standard meaning and speaker meaning is not as arbitrary as it might seem generated an innovative approach to the study of that distinction, which he deemed can be constructive and valuable. One of Grice’s goals was to propose a theory that would determine the reason a certain utterance is mistakenly used. Primarily, he wanted the theory’s aim to be a distinction between the case in which an utterance is not appropriate because it is not true taking into consideration the state of affairs in the world, and the case where there is a different reason for its inappropriateness (Grice 1989, p. 4). The relevance of Grice’s theory lies in the fact that he “suggested that speaker’s meaning was relevant to philosophy and could be properly studied in its own right” (Wilson and Sperber 2012, p.26). This notion was often overlooked in philosophy of language, because speaker’s meaning was thought not to have the capacity to be analysed. Speaker’s meaning is closely tied to speaker’s intention. As Wilson and Sperber (2012, p. 26) point out, Grice views meaning as a “psychological phenomenon”, as opposed to being exclusively a linguistic one. As previously stated, some philosophers of language at the time viewed the study of natural language as strictly linguistic, 5 resulting in a detailed account of a particular language phenomenon, whereas Grice tried to accomplish a comprehensive study of language, analysing both how a certain language unit is standardly used and how the speakers utilize it in their speech acts. In Logic and Conversation, Grice introduces the concept of ‘implicature’,