28 The Cooperative Principle
The Cooperative Principle
In this section, we will discuss the conversational logic behind why certain implicatures arise in discourse. Let’s start with the following example in (1).
| (1) | Aya: | Did Raj feed the cat and clean the litterbox? | |
| Bo: | He fed the cat. | ||
| Aya: | (Infers: ‘He didn’t clean the litterbox.’) |
Terminologically, the speaker/signer creates an implicature or they imply that content. The addressee makes an inference or they infer that content.
We use speaker/signer and addressee in this chapter to discuss the dichotomy of “producer of utterance” vs. “person at whom the utterance was directed”. Where we are referring to the producer of an utterance in a spoken language in particular, we will use speaker. Where we are referring to the producer of an utterance in a signed language in particular, we will use signer. When we are referring to ‘producer of utterance’ in a more general way not specific to modality, we will use speaker/signer. Outside of this textbook, you may encounter just “speaker” being used to mean ‘producer of utterance (not specific to modality)’. Some signed language users do not have a problem with this use of “speaker“, but many signed language users think a more modality-inclusive term should be used. Some other alternatives for this include: utterer/addressee, addressor/addressee, author/addressee, sender/perceiver, producer/perceiver, sender/receiver, sender/recipient, and communicator/audience.
The basic idea of why we get this implicature in this context is that if Raj had fed the cat and cleaned the litterbox, Bo would’ve said so. He didn’t in this case, so Aya can infer that only Raj fed the cat is true, and that Raj cleaned the litterbox is false. Here is how this implicature would be calculated by Aya:
- I asked Bo if Raj fed the cat and cleaned the litterbox.
- I assume that Bo would only tell me things that are true.
- I assume that Bo would give me the maximally informative answer to my question.
- Bo could’ve answered “Raj fed the cat and cleaned the litterbox”, “Raj fed the cat”, “Raj cleaned the litterbox,” or “Raj didn’t feed the cat or clean the litterbox”.
- If the actual facts were that Raj fed the cat AND cleaned the litterbox, then the following answers would be logically true statements: “Raj fed the cat and cleaned the litterbox,” “Raj fed the cat,” and “Raj cleaned the litterbox”.
- However, if Raj actually fed the cat AND cleaned the litterbox, “Raj fed the cat and cleaned the litterbox” would be the more informative thing to say than “Raj fed the cat” or “Raj cleaned the litterbox”.
- In actuality, Bo only said “Raj fed the cat.” This must be because if he said “Raj fed the cat and cleaned the litterbox,” it would be a false statement.
- Therefore, it must be the case that only Raj fed the catis true, and that Raj cleaned the litterbox is false.
This way of analysing how implicatures arise in discourse is called the Cooperative Principle, prop