Implicature

Generating Implicatures on Purpose

When you flout one of Grice’s Maxims, the implicature is intentional. You know you are breaking the maxim. The other people in the conversation (interlocutors) also know that you’re breaking the maxim. You want them to be aware of it and understand the hidden meaning you’ve created.

Let’s look at the following example:

Interlocutor: How was the lesson?
You: It was a lesson.

In this case, you’re breaking the maxim in an obvious way. Plus, you’re telling us less than we’d expect in a usual response to this question. It’s still on topic, but it’s very short and lacking information. So, we’d say that you’re flouting the maxim of quantity.

The implicature that you might generate from this kind of answer is that the lesson was average or bad. You want the other person in the conversation to be aware of this hidden meaning.

There are plenty of things that you can do to make it clear to your interlocutor that you’ve done this on purpose. Of course, it’s about how obvious you are in the language you use. However, context, tone and body language also play a big part in this.

For example, when you use sarcasm, you flout the maxim of quality – you say something that’s not true. However, you need to say it in a sarcastic tone. Otherwise, your interlocutor might accidentally think that you’re being truthful!

Generating Implicatures By Accident

Of course, there are going to be times when you generate an implicature without meaning to. This might happen for a few different reasons. These will depend on how you broke the maxim.

Let’s look at the three ways you can break a maxim where generating an implicature isn’t a deliberate thing you’re doing:

• Violating a Maxim
• Infringing a Maxim
• Opting Out of a Maxim

Violating a Maxim

When you violate a maxim, you want to slip the fact that you broke a maxim past the other people in the conversation. That’s because you don’t want them to pick up on an implicature at all.

If you are successful with your violation of the maxim, it shouldn’t generate any implicatures. However, there are plenty of instances where a violation is unsuccessful.

We can see this happening with Rishi Sunak when his interviewer asked if he has a private GP.

Interviewer: Were you registered with a private GP and are you still?
Sunak: My dad was a doctor. I grew up in an NHS family.

In this case, Sunak is violating the maxim of relation. It isn’t relevant what his father’s job was or if he grew up in an NHS family. However, he is trying to slip this past the interviewer as an answer to the question. He doesn’t want her to notice that he hasn’t answered the question. At the same time, he doesn’t want to generate any implicatures that might make her assume he uses private healthcare.

However, this doesn’t mean he gets to control whether the interviewer and audience get an implicature from what he says. As much as he would have liked to avoid an implicature, that’s not what happened. The interviewer, the press and the public all assumed from his irrelevant answer that he uses private healthcare but doesn’t want to admit it – whether that’s because he’s ashamed or because this information would look bad for his public image.

So, while he was trying to avoid an implicature, he generated one accidentally anyway.

Infringing a Maxim

Of course, you can accidentally break a maxim without realising it. There are plenty of reasons why this might happen, from mishearing what your interlocutor said to drugs and alcohol.

When you infringe a maxim, you didn’t intend to deceive anyone or generate an implicature. However, you could still accidentally generate one without even realising you’ve done it. Here are some implicatures that you might accidentally generate when you infringe a maxim:

• You don’t care about the topic or speaker.
• You don’t understand.
• There are other things on your mind.
• You are under the influence of a substance that is stopping you from being able to engage in the conversation properly.

Most of the time, when you infringe a maxim, you don’t notice that you’ve done it straight away. However, other people’s responses to you, body language, facial expressions and tone might tip you off to the fact that you have generated an unexpected implicature.

Opting Out of Grice’s Maxims

When you opt out of Grice’s Maxims, you choose to say nothing at all that will contribute to the conversation. Usually, this will be saying something like “no comment” or keeping silent. You do this because you don’t want to generate any implicatures.

When you opt out of one, or all, of the maxims, you do it for a few different reasons:

• You don’t want to cooperate.
• You could be putting yourself or others in danger if you answer.
• There is something stopping you from answering (the law, your job, etc).

However, although you are opting out of the maxims, you are still often accidentally generating an implicature. People assume hidden meanings when you choose not to engage in the conversation.

Let’s look at the next part of the interview with Rishi Sunak from the example earlier:

Interviewer: That wasn't my question. It's really straightforward. Were you registered with a private GP?
Sunak: As a general concept, I wouldn't really talk about me or my family's healthcare situation. But again, it's not really relevant to this. What's relevant is the difference I can make to the country.

The interviewer caught on to the fact that Sunak violated the maxim earlier on and asked him to answer the question again. This time, he opts out by saying that he doesn’t want to talk about his situation and that her question isn’t relevant.

While he is trying to avoid generating an implicature, people came to the same assumption: that Sunak doesn’t want to admit that he does use private healthcare.

We are quite used to detecting when people don’t follow Grice’s Maxims. So, it’s easy for us to generate implicatures even when the speaker doesn’t want us to.