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Cooperation and Implicatures

This document analyzes two comic strips in terms of the Cooperative Principle and implicatures. For comic strip 1, the girl's language uses implicatures of time, desire, and reference. For comic strip 2, the man's language uses implicatures of quality, existence, location, and irony. Both comic strips contain generalized and particularized conversational implicatures derived from the cooperative maxims of quality, quantity, relevance and manner.

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Maria de los Angeles Soria
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24 views3 pages

Cooperation and Implicatures

This document analyzes two comic strips in terms of the Cooperative Principle and implicatures. For comic strip 1, the girl's language uses implicatures of time, desire, and reference. For comic strip 2, the man's language uses implicatures of quality, existence, location, and irony. Both comic strips contain generalized and particularized conversational implicatures derived from the cooperative maxims of quality, quantity, relevance and manner.

Uploaded by

Maria de los Angeles Soria
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Language and Oral Expression IV

Cabral, Verónica

Soria, María de los Ángeles

Cooperation and Implicatures

1. Choose two Comic Strips from page 23 in the Booklet.

2. Work with a partner and analyse them as in the example provided.

The Cooperative Principle and Implicatures will be analysed in these two jokes
written by Scott Adams.

COMIC STRIP 1:

Vignette one: The girl uses the expression “Tch!” to express surprise. She also
resorts to the use of the adverb “still” which is attached to the idea of time as a
conventional implicature. The adverb of time “still” is used to emphasize that
something is continuing to happen; the fact that the singer that she is watching on
television is singing despite the passing of years. This question implicates that the
girl desires an answer. Finally, the girl uses the demonstrative adjective “that” to
refer to the singer she is watching on the television and not someone else.

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Vignette two: While another woman enters the frame, the girl answers her
questions herself and she uses the verb “thought” that is written in the past simple
form, which is a clausal generalized implicature of the quantity type in the weak form
since no context is needed. This implicates that the girl was not sure about the
singer being currently working.

Vignette three: The girl uses in her utterance the modal verb “must” which is
associated with scalar generalized implicature of the quantity type as she is
asserting an utterance to be true. Additionally, the use of the adjective
“embarrassing”, which triggers a scalar implicature of the quality type, implicates that
it is awkward the fact that there are fans throwing shawls on the stage. Also, the use
of the noun “shawls” implicates that the fans might be mostly women.

COMIC STRIP 2:

Vignette one: The man uses the adjective “great” which triggers a scalar implicature
of quality that implicates that what he has seen was neither “bad” nor “terrible”. By
saying “Andy”, the reader implicates that he is talking to that person specifically and
not to another one, therefore triggering the generalized conversational implicature,
which is calculated on the basis of the cooperative principle, in which the maxims of
quality, quantity, relevance and manner take place.

Vignette two: The man mentions the following noun phrases: “their fullback” and
“the winger”, implicating that both of them exist (existential presupposition). This is a
generalized conversational implicature because no context is needed to understand

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the situation, only by the speaker’s words can we infer that he is in a football match.
By using the imperative form of the verbs “draw” and “pass”, we can also assume
that he is talking to someone else.

Vignette three: There is a scalar implicature marked by the conjunction “or”,


showing that there is another possibility apart from one mentioned before. Also, the
use of the imperative shows that he is addressing someone, whereas the use of the
noun phrase “the guy” implies that there is another person that was tackled by the
previous one. This last utterance of the joke is also full of irony, as the speaker does
not actually mean what he says, thus creating a particularized conversational
implicature.

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