I．Grice’s Cooperative Principle and the four maxims

The idea that people cooperate with each other in conversing is generalized by Grice (1975) as the cooperative principle (CP). The general idea behind the principle is that people involved in a conversation will cooperate with each other.

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. The maxims are:

The maxim of quantity 

 Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange).

 Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

The maxim of quality – Try to make your contribution one that is true.

 Do not say what you believe to be false. 

 Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

The maxim of relevance – Be relevant.

The maxim of manner – Be perspicuous. 

 Avoid obscurity of expression. 

 Avoid ambiguity. 

 Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity). 

 Be orderly. 

Those maxims indicate that participants of a conversation should speak sincerely, relevantly and clearly, while providing sufficient information.

II. Conversational implicature

It is observed that there is more meaning than is said if the maxims are violated by the speaker. This kind of implicit, non-conventional meaning is called conversational implicature.

e.g. A: Do you reckon Sally will that sugar daddy?

B: Do you want another cup of coffee?

B’s response violates the maxim of relevance. The implicature is that the hearer doesn’t want to gossip about Sally’s love affair. These example shows that implicature is kind of speaker meaning. It has to be worked out by the hearer through inference.

III. Conversational implicature and inference

Conservational implicature is dependent on the particular context in which an utterance is made. Implicature is generated by the speaker and the inference is made by the hearer. An implicature may lead to difference inferences in particular contexts. For example:

Peter: Are you going to the seminar?

Helen: it’s on pragmatics.

On the superficial level, Helen violates the maxim of relevance in responding to Peter’s question, but on the deep level, Peter knows that Helen is cooperative in the conversation, and he needs to figure out whether or not Helen is going to the seminar by inference. If Peter knows that Helen is interested in pragmatics, Peter would make a conclusion that Helen is going to the seminar. If Peter knows that Helen is not interested in pragmatics, he will infer that Helen is not going to the seminar.

In order for the hearer to get the implicature, a lot of contextual factors need to be taken into consideration in the hearer’s inference.