THE CO-OPERATIVE PRINCIPLE AND IMPLICATURE

1. What might the second speaker ‘mean’ in each of the following dialogues? Write a
pragmatic paraphrase in each case, and think about how you inferred the meaning.
a. Virginia: Do you like my new hat?
Mary: It’s pink!
b. Maggie: Coffee?
James: It would keep me awake all night.
c. Linda: Have you finished the student evaluation forms and the reading lists?
Jean: I’ve done the reading lists.
d. Phil: Are you going to Steve’s barbecue?
Terry: Well, Steve’s got those dogs now.
e. Annie: Was the dessert any good?
Mike: Annie, cherry pie is cherry pie.

2. Do the same thing, this time with a different utterance from the first speaker (the same
participants). Write a pragmatic paraphrase for the second speaker’s response in each
dialogue.
a. V: Try the roast pork.
M: It’s pink!
b. M: We went to see The Omen last night but it wasn’t very scary.
J.: It would keep me awake all night.
c. L: You look very pleased with yourself.
J: I’ve done the reading lists.
d. P: His garden looks awful.
T: Well, Steve’s got those dogs now.
e. A: I thought the pie would cheer you up.
M: Annie, cherry pie is cherry pie.

• Unlike presuppositions and entailments, conversational implicatures are inferences

that cannot be made from isolated utterances. They are dependent on the context of
the utterance and on the shared knowledge between the speaker and the hearer.
• Grice has proposed a way of analysing implicatures based on the co-operative
principle. That is, we assume that in a conversation the participants will co-operate
with each other when making their contributions.
• In Grice’s analysis, the speaker’s flouting of a maxim combined with the hearer’s
assumption that the speaker has not really abandoned the co-operative principle
leads to an implicature.
• Grice’s maxims:
1. RELEVANCE/RELATION: Make sure that whatever you say is relevant to the
conversation at hand. Be relevant.
2. QUALITY: Do not say what you believe to be false. Do not say that for which
you lack adequate evidence.
3. QUANTITY: Make your contribution sufficiently informative for the current
purposes of conversation. Do not make your contribution more informative than is
necessary.

1
 4. CLARITY/MANNER: Do not make your contribution obscure, ambiguous or
difficult to understand. Avoid obscurity of expression. Avoid ambiguity. Be brief.
Be orderly.
5 ways of failing to observe/breaching a maxim:
• Violating a maxim: it is not obvious at the time of the utterance that the speaker
has deliberately lied, supplied insufficient information, or been ambiguous,
irrelevant or hard to understand. Violations do not lead to implicatures.
• Flouting a maxim: it is obvious to the hearer at the time of the utterance that the
speaker has deliberately and quite openly failed to observe one or more maxims;
the S wishes to prompt the H to look for a meaning which is different from, or in
addition to, the expressed meaning.
• Infringing a maxim: the S fails to observe a maxim, although she/he has no
intention of generating an implicature and no intention of deceiving (linguistic
incompetence to perform successful speech acts)
• Opting out of a maxim: the S indicates unwillingness to cooperate in the way the
maxim requires.
• Suspending a maxim: no expectation on the part of any participant that one or
several maxims should be observed (e.g. quality maxim in the case of funeral
orations and obituaries, manner maxim in poetry, quantity maxim in the case of
telegrams, e-mails)

3. Suppose you were considering X for a job that needed good writing skills. You have
written to his English teacher asking her to assess his performance in this area. You
receive this following reply:
X has regularly and punctually attended all my classes. All his assignments were handed
in on time and very neatly presented. I greatly enjoyed having X in my class.
(a) What maxim does the teacher seem to flout?
(b) What implicature would you draw about X’ writing skills?
(c) Why do you think the teacher phrased her response this way?

4. Which maxim has the child failed to observe? Would you consider this a case of flouting
or violation of that maxim?
Speech therapist: So you like ice – cream. What are your favourite flavours?
Child with a pragmatic disorder: Hamburger…fish and chips.

5. In each of the following, decide whether the inference in brackets is a presupposition or an

implicature derived from the underlined utterance.
(a) A: My boyfriend lives in Luton.
B: My boyfriend lives in Paris. (I have a boyfriend)
(b) A: What?
B: Why are you laughing at me? (You are laughing at me)
(c) A: Why is she eating those?
B: Her father didn’t give her any supper. (She didn’t have any supper)
(d) A: Is Mike engaged?
B: He’s bought a ring. (Mike is engaged)
(e) A: You look pleased.
B: I managed to pass the exam. (I tried to pass the exam)
(f) A: Did you finish that report?

2
 B: I started it. (I didn’t finish the report)

6. Decide which maxim has not been observed (flouting or violation?). In case of flouting,
what implicature might be drawn? Background information is given in square brackets.
(a) Annie: Mike, did you drive the driving test?
Mike: No. [Mike knows he’s passed the driving test]
(b) Annie: Do you want some pie?
Mike: gmmm uh mmm [Mike’s just had his wisdom teeth extracted]
(c) Annie: I really liked that dinner.
Mike: I’m a vegetarian.
(d) Teacher: What time is it? [towards the end of a lecture]
Student: It’s 10:44 and 35.6 seconds.
(e) Student A: How are you?
Student B: I’m dead.
(f) Host: Would you like a cocktail? It’s my own invention.
Guest: Well, mmm uh it’s not that we don’t not drink…

7. Return to exercise 1 and decide which maxim was flouted by the second speaker in each
dialogue.

8. Give an implicature of B’s utterance in each of the situations below.

a) A: Come to my cheese-and-wine party, please! Of course, you don’t drink, do you?

B: Well, we don’t drink.
b) A: Do you love me?
B: I’m quite fond of you.
c) A: Do you love me?
B: Are you rich?
d) A: Was there a fiddle at the bar last night?
B: There was a man scraping a bow across a violin.
e) A: Do you like my new carpet?
B: The wallpaper’s not bad.

9. Fill in an appropriate utterance for B, so that what B utters yields the provided implicature:
a) A: Let’s try the new Arab restaurant round the corner.
B: ……………………………………………………….
[Arab restaurants are unlikely to serve vegetarian food]
b) A: Meet me at Piccadilly Circus at midnight.
B: …………………………………………..
[Piccadilly Circus is not a safe place to be at midnight]
c) A: Do you use your local swimming pool?
B: ………………………………………..
[B’s local swimming pool has salt water]
d) A: How much do I owe you now?
B: …………………………………
[A’s debts to B are large and complicated to work out]

MORE ON IMPLICATURES

3
 1. For each dialogue, answer the accompanying question based on the implicature that
you can draw from the second speaker’s response. Think about why you drew those
implicatures. [Generalized conversational implicatures]
(a) Carmen: Did you get the milk and the eggs?
Dave: I got the milk.
Did Dave buy the eggs?
(b) Carmen: Did you manage to fix that leak?
Dave: I tried to.
Did Dave fix that milk?
(c) Faye: I hear you’ve invited Mat and Chris.
Ed: I didn’t invite Mat.
Did Ed invite Chris?
(d) Steve: What happened to your flowers?
Jane: A dog got into the garden.
Did the dog belong to Jane?

2. If you were Jane, what implicatures would you have drawn from each of Steve’s
responses? [Scalar implicatures]
(a) Jane: Who used all the printer paper?
Steve: I used some of it.
(b) Jane: I hear you’re always late with the rent.
Steve: Well, sometimes I am.
(c) Jane: Mike and Annie should be here by now.
Steve: Possibly.
(d) Jane: This cheese looks funny. The label said to store it in a cool place.
Steve: Yeah, I did.

3. Now examine those implicatures in light of the following information known only
to Steve.
Would you say that Steve was lying to Jane in exercise 2? Why?
(a) Steve has in fact used all the printer paper.
(b) Steve has been late with the rent every month since he moved in.
(c) Steve knows for a fact that the plane was late because Mike and Annie called him
from the airport.
(d) Steve had absentmindedly put the cheese in the freezer.

4. Look at each of these dialogues and the implicatures which appear in brackets. Then
decide what knowledge the speaker and the hearer would have to share in order for
that implicature to be drawn.[Particularized conversational implicatures]
(a) Tom: Are you going to Mike’s party tonight?
Annie: My parents are in town. [“No”]
(b) Tom: Where is the salad dressing?
Gabriela: We’ve run out of olive oil. [“There isn’t any salad dressing”]
(c) Steve: What’s with your mother?
Jane: Let’s go into the garden. [“I can’t talk about it in here”]
(d) Mat: Want some brownies?
Chris: There must be 20,000 calories there. [“No”]

5. Decide whether each of the inferences in brackets is a presupposition or an

implicature. For the implicature, decide whether they are generalized or particularized.

4
 (a) Mike: I heard about the mess.
Dave: Yeah, Steve regrets sending that e – mail. (Steve sent that e - mail)
(b) Patrick: I didn’t take it.
Virginia: Why do you always lie? (“You always lie”)
(c) Doris: Did Carmen like the party?
Dave: She left after an hour. (She didn’t like the party)
(d) Mat: How did you do on those exams?
Chris: I failed physics. (“I didn’t failed the others”)
(e) Steve: Did you buy the car?
Ed: It cost twice as much as I thought it would. (Ed didn’t buy the car)
(f) Maggie: The bathroom’s flooded!
James: Someone must have left the tap on. (It wasn’t James who left the tap
on)

6. Point out instances of non-observance of maxims (flouting, violation, infringing, opting

out) in the following dialogues. Specify when the interlocutor’s intention fails to be
inferred correctly by the other participant in the conversation:

A. Will: Uncle Philip, you have to admit: you eat far too much.
Uncle Phil: Come on, you know that’s not true. I have exactly the same weight as in high
school.
Will: Yes, in all four years together.

By uttering the words, using a constative speech act, according to Austin’s theory, Will
simply tells his uncle Philip that he consumes too much food (locution). The illocution of the
words uttered by Will is that of stating something which he considers to be true about his
uncle, hoping that his statement will influence his uncle’s future behavior (perlocution).
According to Searle’s theory of speech acts, Will is performing an indirect representative
speech act, committing himself to the truth of what he is expressing, representing the external
reality by making his words fit the world as he believes it to be, therefore stating what he
believes to be true about his uncle. At the same time, his utterance can also be interpreted as a
directive speech act, directing the hearer, that is his uncle, to perform some future act ,
suggesting that he should stop eating that much.
As far as Grice’s Cooperative Principle is concerned, we may consider that by saying the
words, Will is fully cooperative, not breaching any of the maxims of conversations, but
simply stating something. The same thing can be said for the words uttered by Uncle Phil,
who uses the same type of speech acts, according to Searle’s theory, that is representatives,
simply to state something he believes to be true. The locution of Phil’s words consists in the
fact that he admits he managed to keep the weight he used to have when he was a teenager,
the illocution being that of stating something which he considers to be true about himself,
while the perlocution is aimed at stopping Will from making further comments on Phil’s
physical appearance.
Will’s last reply (representative speech act), is meant to somehow make Phil aware of the fact
that he should stop eating (perlocution). Although in the beginning Will seems to fully agree
with Uncle’s Phil previous statement, by saying ‘yes’, he breaches Grice’s CP, flouting the
maxim of quality, saying something for which he lacks adequate evidence, as, for sure his
utterance only relies on what he sees, not being able to tell for sure Phil’s exact weight, as
well as the maxim of quantity, as he is less informative than required by the context, not
providing his uncle all the information required (he could have simply said: ‘you are four
times fatter than you used to be in high school’) the implicature being ‘you are far too fat’.

5
Mai trebuie analizat si punctul de vedere al Teoriei lui Brown&Levinson si a lui Leech
(dar dupa ce le faceti la curs )

B. Phil (to his son, Carlton, reluctant to helping him fix the baby’s cradle): Am I keeping you
from something more important?
Carlton: As a matter of fact, I have to study for my mid-term, to go to a party with the boys,
and I’d like to have a wife and kids to go on with my life.

C. Will (to his cousin Carlton, a wimpish underachiever): Carlton, what are you doing here?
Carlton: I have to write an essay for tomorrow with the theme: “Imagine yourself twenty
years from now”
Will: Oh, I see, no wonder you’re so depressed.

D: Cybill enters a club for old celebrities and one of the retired actors there tries to make a
pass on her:
Retired actor: Listen, baby, do you know who I am?
Cybill: No, but I’m sure after a little nap you’ll remember.

E: Man sitting next to Will at the opera: We are trying to enjoy the opera.
Will: I know, it’s hard. isn’t it?

F: Phil to his wife Vivian: You look great. Did you lose some weight?
Vivian: Yes, and it seems to me that you have found it.

G: Phoebe to Monica and Chandler, who have made up after a tiff and are kissing
passionately: Get a room!
Chandler: We have one.
Phoebe: I know. Use it!

H. Rachel (pick up the phone): Hello, Vegas? We’d like some more alcohol. And … y’know
what else? We’d like some more beers. OH (giggling) I forgot to dial!
Ross (hearing a knock on the door): That must be our alcohol and beers.

I: C.C. and Niles loathe each other and take delight in hurting and embarrassing each other.
C.C.: I’ve never felt so insulted in my life!
Niles: You’ve never been so insulted? Well, now I’m insulted!

J: Fran’s mother, Sylvia, seeing Fran devouring a chocolate cake: Stick that out?
Fran: Isn’t she like one of those dope-sniffing dogs?

K: On Christmas, an ambulance picks up a drunkard who collapsed on the sidewalk. Soon the
drunkard vomits all over the paramedic. The paramedic says:
Great! That’s really great! That’s made my Christmas!

L: A: How are we getting there?

B: We’re getting there in Dave’s car.

6
M: Father to daughter at family dinner: Any news about the SAT (standard aptitude test)
results?
Daughter: Ice-cream anyone?

N: Victor has been buried up to his neck in the back garden by an irate builder. His wife,
Margaret, comes out.
Margaret: What are you doing?
Victor: I’m wallpapering the spare bedroom, what do you think I’m doing ?

O: Supervisor: Did you read the articles and wrote up literature review?
Supervisee: I certainly read the articles. Weren’t they captivating!

P: A: Did you like my presentation?

B: The attendance was impressive, wasn’t it?

R: Reporter to Madonna: Why do you think they rated you as one of the worst-dressed artists
of the year?
Madonna: Why bother to talk about other people’s tastes?