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In:Implicitness: From lexis to discourse
Edited by Piotr Cap and Marta Dynel
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 276] 2017
► pp. 201–216

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Chapter 9
Implicitness in the use of situation-bound utterances

 | State University of New York, Albany
Published online: 30 June 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.276.09kec
This chapter discusses the nature of implicit knowledge encoded in situation-bound utterances (SBUs) that are defined as highly conventionalized, prefabricated pragmatic units whose occurrences are tied to standardized communicative situations because they serve as interactional patterns and rituals that usually mean the same to all speakers of a particular speech community. It will be argued that there is a strong connection between implicitness and conventions of usage in language use. Conventional routine expressions like SBUs encode information that is equally available for all members of the given speech community. This information is usually implicit because the functional meaning of expressions is rarely reflected in their compositional meaning. The paradox of the use of SBUs is that although most of them are characterized by a high level of implicitness, they may still represent the most direct way to express some social function.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Characteristics of situation-bound utterances
  • 3.Tacit knowledge
  • 4.Context-dependence of implicitly conveyed information
    • 4.1Understanding context
    • 4.2SBUs are context sensitive in different degrees
  • 5.Can SBUs be underspecified?
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (28)
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