LIT6031 Chap.5 Implicature, Maxims and Convention
Implicature, Maxims and Convention
Gricean analysis treats conversation as cooperative activity organised by quantity, quality, relation and manner. An apparent breach may generate implicature, mislead, mark withdrawal or result from inability. This chapter requires a recoverable inference and then runs a cancellation test: role, genre or cultural convention may make a marked form ordinary and remove the proposed hidden meaning.
Quantity concerns the amount of information needed for the exchange. Quality concerns truth and adequate evidence. Relation asks for relevance, and manner asks for clarity, order and avoidance of needless ambiguity. These are working expectations rather than rules that every line visibly obeys. Drama gains force when a character appears to depart from one while expecting another participant to recover a purpose.
Begin with literal content. Then explain why cooperation makes the contribution noticeable in this context. A narrow answer may imply that nothing more positive can be said, but it may also reflect the speaker's limited role. An irrelevant remark may evade a question, change the frame or signal withdrawal. Naming several maxims without ranking them avoids the decision the analysis needs. Shared premises bound the inference.
Participants can recover only what their knowledge and situation make available, while spectators may possess earlier information that creates irony. State whether the proposed meaning belongs to the addressee, the audience or both. Later uptake, challenge and repair provide valuable evidence because they show whether the inference operated inside the scene. Convention can support or cancel the result.
Verse, ceremonial address, comic deception and familiar plot patterns establish departures that are ordinary within a genre or role. A marked expression in daily conversation may therefore be unmarked on stage. Conversely, a conventional form can be strained so that audiences notice the point at which it stops working.
Finish by writing a cancellation sentence: the implication would not follow if a named role, genre or factual premise made the literal contribution sufficient. Search the scene for that condition. An interpretation that survives the test has earned its place; one that fails has identified the convention governing the exchange.
What this chapter covers
- 01
cooperative principle
- 02
quantity and quality
- 03
relation and manner
- 04
flouting versus covert violation
- 05
recoverable participant inference
- 06
genre and cultural cancellation
Worked example · free
Infer from a narrow answer
- 2Record the literal proposition.
- 3Identify the maxim issue and inference.
- 2Test role-based cancellation.
Key terms
- Cooperative Principle
- The assumption that contributions normally serve the recognised purpose of an exchange.
- Implicature
- Meaning recovered beyond literal content when an apparent maxim breach remains cooperative.
- Cancellation
- Evidence that removes a proposed inference without contradicting the literal words.
Implicature, Maxims and Convention FAQ
Does every maxim breach create implicature?
No. A speaker may lie covertly, withdraw from cooperation, face competing demands or simply fail to communicate. Implicature requires a meaning the listener can recover while preserving a rational contribution in context.
Why does convention matter?
Genre, role and cultural practice determine what counts as marked. Verse does not imply that every dramatic character is evasively poetic, and ceremonial plurals need not refer to several speakers. Convention can support or cancel an inference.
How can later dialogue test an implicature?
Look for uptake, challenge, repair or explicit cancellation. If another character responds to the inferred meaning rather than the literal sentence, the text supplies evidence that the implicature was available inside the scene.
How can I distinguish implicature from a convenient guess about motive?
Write the reasoning as an explicit chain. Start with what the utterance literally contributes and what question or action is currently relevant. Identify the apparent mismatch in informativeness, truthfulness, relevance or manner without assuming deliberate violation. Add only premises that participants could reasonably access from the scene, relationship or theatrical convention.
Derive the audience's likely inference and inspect the next turn for uptake, correction or strategic use of it. A motive claim becomes stronger when another character acts as though the implication mattered. Now test alternatives. The speaker may lack information, misunderstand the task, protect a role obligation or speak within a genre where the marked form is conventional.
Write a cancellation sentence beginning with ‘the implication would not follow if’ and search the scene for that condition. Performance can expose the difference: stress, pause placement, gaze and response timing may make an inference available, but cannot replace the contextual premises that license it.
In a report, distinguish the audience's inference from the character's proven intention; drama often lets spectators recognise an implication that a participant misses. Also distinguish a maxim from a moral rule. The framework describes how hearers reason from expectations of contribution, including during deception or conflict.
A defensible paragraph identifies the expectation, departure, premise and consequence before assigning motive.
Assessment move
Use four lines for each example: literal proposition, apparent maxim problem, shared premises and candidate inference. Add a fifth line for convention or later uptake that could cancel it. This prevents intuitive paraphrase from being mistaken for analysis.
