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8 - The Role of Context in Gricean and Neo-Gricean Pragmatics

from Part III - Pragmatic Approaches to Context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 November 2023

By
Jacques Moeschler
Edited by
Jesús Romero-Trillo
Jesús Romero-Trillo
Affiliation:
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
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Summary

This chapter explores the role of context in the computation of implicit pragmatic meanings (implicatures). In the classic view of Gricean and neo-Gricean pragmatics, conversational implicatures are triggered by the Cooperative Principle and the maxims of conversation, and are defined as non-contextual, with the exception of particularized conversational implicatures (PCIs). On the other hand, it is assumed that generalized conversational implicatures (GCIs) and conventional implicatures (CIs) are not contextual, although GCIs can be defeated by the context or denied by the speaker. This non-contextual approach to pragmatics (the Gricean turn) has given rise to a default approach to implicatures. The second purpose of this chapter is to tackle the contextual dimension of neo-Gricean pragmatics, which has been developed by exponents of neo-Gricean pragmatics. Their approaches to pragmatics, limited to GCIs as scalar implicatures, are based either on pragmatic principles, the Q-Principle and R- or I-principle (Horn, Levinson), or on the reformulation of conversational maxims and reasoning (Gazdar, Chierchia, Fox). It is argued that the focus on GCIs, although it should minimize the role of context in the generation of implicatures, demonstrates on the contrary the pervasive function of context, which is not limited to implicature cancellation.

Keywords

cooperative principlemaxims of conversationgeneralized conversational implicatureconventional implicaturescalar implicaturepragmatic principles
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Language in Context , pp. 183 - 204
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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