Cooperation and implicature
In our daily life, speakers and listeners involved in conversation are generally cooperating with each other. In other words, when people are talking with each other, they must try to converse smoothly and successfully. In accepting speakers’ presuppositions, listeners have to assume that a speaker is not trying to mislead them. This sense of cooperation is simply one in which people having a conversation are not normally assumed to be trying to confuse, trick, or withhold relevant information from one another.
However, in real communication, the intention of the speaker is often not the literal meaning of what he or she says. The real intention implied in the words is called conversational implicature.
Example:
[1]
A: Can you tell me the time?
B: Well, the milkman has come.
In this little conversation, A is asking B about the time, but B is not answering directly. That indicates that B may also not know the accurate time, but through saying “the milkman has come”, he is in fact giving a rough time. The answer B gives is related to the literal meaning of the words, but is not merely that. That is often the case in communication. The theory of conversational implicature is for the purpose of explaining how listeners infer the speakers’ intention through the words.
