The four characteristics of Conversational Implicature 会话含义的四个特性

Calculability

The fact that speakers try to convey conversational implicatures and hearers are able to understand them suggests that implicatures are calculable. They can be worked out on the basis of some previous information.

Cancellability

Cancellability is also known as DEFEASIBILITY. It is said that the presence of a conversational implicature relies on a number of factors: the conventional meaning of words used, the Cooperative principle, the linguistic and the situational context, etc. So if any of them change, the implicature will also change. He Ziran gives a good example to illustrate defeasibility:

A: Do you want some coffee?

B: Coffee would keep me awake.

B may plan not to accept the coffee to avoid being kept awake. However, if some additional condition is added, B’s answer will be different:

A1: Do you want some coffee?

B1: Coffee would keep me awake. And I want to stay awake.

It has been reviewed that “originally implied meaning has changed somewhat into B’s intended need of coffee, maybe due to his/her not intending to drive sleepily and, more exactly, dangerously at night.”(He, 1997:55) From the two examples, B and B1 are neither directly answer the question. Their answers violate the quantity maxim and the relevance maxim of Cooperative Principle. First, both of B and B1 don’t give enough information about whether they want a cup of coffee or not directly; second, their answers have no relevance with the question. “Yes” or “No” they don’t give an exactly answer. But through Politeness Principle, the listeners politely refuse accept A and A1’s invitation for not injuring their pride. In this example, B and B1 have taken the indirect politeness strategy to show the implicature. B shows refusal and B1 shows acceptation. In this way both of each side would understand each other’s deep meaning.

Non-detachability

It means that a conversational implicature is attached to the semantic content of what is said, not to the linguistic form. Therefore it is possible to use a synonym and keep the implicature intact. In other words, an implicature will not be detached, separated from the utterance as a whole, even though the specific words may be changed. Here is an example provided by He Ziran to illustrate non-detachability.

A: Did your treatment for stammering work?

B: She sells seashells on the seashore.

A: How amazing!

B: Yes, b-b-butth-th-that’s not s-s-something I v-v-very of-ten w-w-want to say. (He,1997:56)

And:

A1: Did your treatment for stammering work?

B1: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper.

A1: How amazing!

B1: Yes, b-b-butth-th-that’s not s-s-something I v-v-very of-ten w-w-want to say. (He, 1997:53)

These two dialogues differ from each other in the substitution of two tongue twisters. The substitution is defined as a linguistic form change, which has no effect to resolve a different conversational implicature. That is to say, the conversational implicature is only attached to the semantic meaning of the utterances, and it can be interpreted despite the exchange of the two tongue twisters. This is the illustration of why conversational implicature is non-detachable. The two examples violate the quantity maxim and the relevance maxim of Cooperative Principle. The listener uses a fluent jingle to express his well treatment. But the next answer exposes his shortage of treatment. Actually B’s answer has no relevance with the question. But Politeness Principle would convey their deep meaning that B and B1 have good treatment though it’s not accomplished completely. Here the indirect politeness strategy to show the implicature that B and B1’s answers would not make themselves embarrassed. So in this special situation these indirect sentences are valuable to use.

Non-conventionality

Conversational implicature is by definition different from the conventional meaning of words. To show the differences more clearly, we can have a look at some examples of entailment. Implicatures are not part of the conventional meaning of linguistic expressions.

“Some reasons for believing this have already been adduced under cancellability (or defeasibility) and non-detachability. But in addition, if Grice is right about the manner in which implicatures comes about, then since you need to know the literal meaning or sense of a sentence before you can calculate its implicatures in a context, the implicatures cannot be part of that meaning.” (Levinson, 2001:117)

He Ziran presents an example to make this property easy to comprehend:

Man: Would you like to invite me up for a coffee?

Woman: Oh…I’m afraid the place is in a terrible mess.... (He, 1997:57)

The man hopes to be invited by asking for a cup of coffee and the woman seems to have got it clearly. Obviously, the woman has no intention to have one more cup of coffee with him by announcing that her room is in a terrible mess, which equals to a refusal. This implicature can be easily drawn at a deeper level.

First this conversation has violated the quantity maxim, quality maxim and relevance maxim of Cooperative Principle. The woman’s answer is indirect; she does not give enough information and has no relevance with the topic. Obviously the woman rejects the man’s invitation. Suppose that after hearing the lady’s implied rejection, the man insists to argue for his not minding the mess inside the lady’s room, and even insists to be invited，then people make sure that he is not in a rational mental state, or he ignores the woman’s meaning deliberately. As a result in Politeness Principle the woman’s rejection doesn’t hurt the man’s self-respect. And the indirect politeness strategy indicates the advantage of refusing others in a gentle way. This inferring process is a good exemplification of the feature of non-conventionality.