Philosophy Pragmatics Questions Long
Sperber and Wilson's relevance theory is a pragmatic framework that aims to explain how communication works by focusing on the concept of relevance. According to this theory, the primary goal of communication is to convey information that is relevant to the hearer's cognitive context. Implicature plays a crucial role in relevance theory as it helps to enrich the communicated meaning beyond the literal interpretation of the words used.
Implicature refers to the meaning that is conveyed indirectly or implicitly through a speaker's utterance. It involves the inference made by the hearer based on the context, the speaker's intentions, and the shared background knowledge. Sperber and Wilson argue that implicatures arise when the speaker's utterance is more informative or relevant than what is strictly required by the literal meaning of the words used.
One of the key concepts in relevance theory is the notion of the "ostensive-inferential" communication process. According to this process, the speaker's utterance is seen as an ostensive stimulus that triggers a set of cognitive inferential processes in the hearer's mind. These inferential processes involve the construction of a cognitive context, the identification of the speaker's intention, and the derivation of the most relevant interpretation of the utterance.
Implicatures play a crucial role in this inferential process by providing additional information that is relevant to the hearer's cognitive context. Sperber and Wilson argue that implicatures are derived through a process of "explicature cancellation," where the hearer cancels out the literal meaning of the utterance and infers the speaker's intended meaning based on the relevance of the implicature.
For example, consider the utterance "John ate some of the cookies." The literal meaning of this sentence implies that John ate a portion of the cookies but not all of them. However, if the speaker knows that there were only two cookies available, the implicature arises that John ate one of the cookies. This implicature is derived by canceling out the literal meaning and inferring the most relevant interpretation based on the context.
Implicatures can also be categorized into two types: conventional and conversational implicatures. Conventional implicatures are derived from the conventional meaning of certain words or phrases, while conversational implicatures arise from the cooperative principles of conversation, such as the maxim of relevance.
In conclusion, implicature plays a significant role in Sperber and Wilson's relevance theory by enriching the communicated meaning beyond the literal interpretation of the words used. It helps the hearer to derive the speaker's intended meaning based on the relevance of the implicature in the given cognitive context. By understanding implicatures, we can better comprehend how communication works and how meaning is conveyed indirectly through inference and context.