word
Conversational Implicature
kon-ver-SAY-shun-ul im-PLIK-ah-tyoor
/ˌkɒnvərˈseɪʃənəl ɪmˈplɪkətʃʊər/Listen
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Syllable breakdown
conversationalimplicature
Dictionary meaning
What a speaker conveys by an utterance beyond its literal meaning, arising from the assumption that the speaker is observing Grice's cooperative maxims — especially quantity, quality, relation, and manner
History and origin
H.P. Grice introduced the concept in his 1967 William James Lectures, published as 'Logic and Conversation' (1975)
Examples
- If someone asks 'Is there a garage nearby?' and you say 'There's a gas station around the corner', the implicature is that the gas station can probably help.
- Grice's notion of conversational implicature explains how we communicate far more than we literally say.
Synonyms: pragmatic implicature, Gricean implicature, implied meaning
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