cooperation and implicature ppsx

Date:11/ 03/ 2011
Name: Lê Minh Sơn
Class: Anh07A
COOPERATION AND IMPLICATURE
1. DEFINITIONS
When people talk with each other, they try to converse smoothly and
successfully. Cooperation is the basis of successful conversations.
The concept and the function of cooperation and implicature are
fundamentally linked. "This sense of cooperation is simply one in which people
having a conversation are not normally assumed to be trying to confuse, trick, or
withhold relevant information from each other". Cooperation can be understood as
an essential factor when speakers and listeners are interacting, in other words, it is
the expectation that the listener has towards the speaker. The speaker is supposed to
convey true statements and say nothing more than what is required.
Implicature can be considered as an additional conveyed meaning (Yule,
1996: 35). It is attained when a speaker intends to communicate more than just what
the words mean. It is the speaker who communicates something via implicatures
and the listener recognizes those communicated meanings via inference.
II. COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE
Cooperative principle make our 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. Specifically, there are four maxims under
this general principle.
1. Quantity:
(i) Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purpose
of exchange.
(ii) Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
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2. Quality: Try to make your contribution one that is true.
　　(i) Do not say what you believe to be false.
　　(ii) Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

3. Relation: be relevant
4. Manner: 　　
(i) Avoid obscurity of expression.
　　(ii) Avoid ambiguity.
　　(iii) Be brief.
　　(iv) Be orderly.
E.g. Man: Does your dog bite? Woman: No.
(The man reaches down to pat the dog. The dog bites the man's hand.)
Man: Ouch! Hey! You said your dog doesn't bite.
Woman: He doesn't. But that's not my dog.
Asking the question, the man assumes that the dog belongs to the woman.
The woman's answer provides less information than expected. The maxim of
quantity is flouted. Is the woman willing to talk with the man? The answer is No, it
means the woman flouted cooperative principle here.
3. HEDGES
Hedges are certain expressions can be used to indicate the degree of
certainty concerning the information given when making a statement.
E.g. As far as I know, they are getting married.
Some expressions:
Quality: As far as I know, I maybe mistaken, I’m not sure if that is right, I guess….
Quantity: As you probably know, to cut a long story short, I won’t bore you with
all the details…
Relation: I don’t know if this is important, this may sound like a dumb question,
not to change the subject…
Manner: This may be a bit confused, I’m not sure if this make sense, I don’t know
if this is clear at all….
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IV. CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE
Conversational implicature is the basic assumption in conversation that
the participants are adhering to the cooperative principle and the maxims.

E.g. Wife: I hope you brought the bread and the cheese.
Husband: Ah, I brought the bread.
In this case, the husband did not mention the cheese. Then, he must intend that
the wife infers what is not mentioned was not brought. The husband has conveyed
more than he has said via a conversational implicature. Using the symbol +> for
an implicature, we can represent the additional conveyed meaning: Wife:
b & c? Husband: b ( +> NOT c)
1. Generalized conversational implicatures
Through the above example, it is possible to perceive that generalized
conversational implicatures happen when there is no special background
knowledge required in the context to calculate the additional conveyed meaning.
E.g. I was sitting in a garden one day. A child looked over the fence.
The implicature here the garden and the child mentioned is not the speakers.
2. Scalar implicatures
Scalar implicatures occur when certain information is communicated by
choosing a word which expresses one value from a scale of values.
From the highest to the lowest :
<all, most, many, some, few>
<always, often, sometimes>
The basis of the scalar implicature is that when any form in a scale is asserted,
the negative of all forms higher on the scale is implicated.
E.g. I’m studying linguistics and I’ve completed some of the required
courses.
By using (some of the required courses), the speaker creates an implicature
(not all, not most, not many).
2. Particularized conversational implicatures
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Particularized conversational implicatures occur when a conversation takes
place in a very specific context in which locally recognized inferences are assumed.
E.g

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. Rick: Hey, coming to the wild party tonight?
Tom: My parents are visiting.
In order to make Tom’s response relevant, Rick has to draw on some assumed
knowledge that one college student in this setting expects another to have. Tom will
be spending that evening with his parents, and time spent with parents is quiet
(consequently +> Tom not at party).
E.g.
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Bert: Do vegetarians eat hamburger?
Ernie: Do chickens have lips?
In the above example, Ernie’s response does not provide a ‘yes’ or ‘no’
answer. Bert must assume that Ernie’s response means ‘of course not!’.
3. Properties of conversational implicatures
All the implicatures taken into consideration are part of what is communicated
and not said. Thus, speakers can always deny that they intended to communicate
such meanings. Conversational implicatures are deniable. They can be explicitly
denied (or alternatively, reinforced) in different ways. The example below can
illustrate this idea:
E.g. you have won only five dollars! (+> ONLY five)
It is quite easy for a speaker to suspend the implicature (only) using the
expression ‘at least’ (You’ve won at least five dollars!), or to cancel the
implicature by adding further information, often following the expression ‘in fact’
(You’ve won five dollars, in fact, you’ve won ten!), or to reinforce the implicature
with additional information, as in: You’ve won five dollars, that’s four more
than one!
IV. CONVENTIONAL IMPLICATURE
Conventional implicatures are not based on the cooperative principle or the
maxims. They do not have to occur in conversation, and they do not depend on
special contexts for their interpretation.

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Conventional implicatures are associated with specific words and result in
additional conveyed meanings when those words are used. The English
conjunction ‘but’ is one of these words. The others is yet, even, and …
E.g.
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Mary suggested black, but I chose white.
In this sentence, ‘Mary suggested black’ is contrasted, via the conventional
implicature of ‘but’, with my choosing white.
Other English words such as ‘yet’ also have conventional implicatures:
E.g.
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Dennis isn’t here yet.
In uttering this statement, the speaker produces an implicature that she/he
expects the statement ‘Dennis is here’. The conventional implicature of ‘yet’ is that
the present situation is expected to be different, or perhaps the opposite, at a later
time.
The other conjunction “and” have conventional implicatures. When two
statements are containing static information are joined by “and”, the implicature is
“in addition” or “plus”. When two statements contain dynamic, action-related
information, the implicature is “and then”.
E.g. Nam is handsome and intelligent. (p & q, +> p plus q)
Nam put on his clothes and left the house. (p & q, +> q after p)
V. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
1. What are differences between presupposition and implicature?
Superficially speaking, implicatures and presuppositions show similarities:
Implicatures: Information that has not been stated explicitly. It can be cancelled.
Presuppositions: Information that has not been stated explicitly. It can be denied.
However, presuppositions and implicatures are different things:
1. The inferences occur at different steps in the interpretive process

2. The cancellation / denial of either kind of inference has different consequences
3. Presuppositions project out of embedded contexts. Implicatures do not show
this behaviour.
2. How can we distinguish presupposition from implicature?
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1. The inferences occur at different steps in the interpretive process
Presuppositions: need to be known or accepted by speaker and hearer before
the utterance can even be interpreted. Without the presupposed information, the
utterance becomes nonsensical.
Implicatures: are derived after the hearer has interpreted the utterance and matched
it to the conversational context.
2. The cancellation / denial of either kind of inference has different consequences
If an implicature is retracted, the literal content of the sentence remains
asserted, whereas retracting a presupposition will subsequently also retract the
literal content of the sentence in question.
E.g. 1 Tom kissed some of the girls. (In fact, he even covered all of them)
=> retracted implicature „Tom did not kiss all girls“ leaves the content intact.
E.g. 2 Tom is in the pizzeria at the Vatikan . (There is no pizzeria at the Vatican.)
=> denied presupposition. Content of E.g. 2 can not be true either.
3. Presuppositions project out of embedded contexts. Implicatures do not show
this behaviour. (If an embedded clause leads to an implicature that is similar to its
nonembedded implicatures, then this happens by independent application of the
conversational maxims.)
E.g. 1 Bonnie has one child.
=> Speaker suggests that Bonnie does not have more. (cancellable)
Does Bonnie have one child?
=> speaker may have neutral expectations about the number of children of
Bonnie, as long as it is in a reasonable range (e.g. between 0 and 3).
E.g.2 Bonnie stopped writing Sonnets.
=> speaker has to believe that Bonnie used to write Sonnets.

Has Bonnie stopped writing Sonnets?
=> speaker has to believe that Bonnie used to write Sonnets (and perhaps still does).
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