Cover not available

In:Implicitness: From lexis to discourse
Edited by Piotr Cap and Marta Dynel
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 276] 2017
► pp. 281–304

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Chapter 13
Implicature and the inferential substrate

 | University of Queensland, Brisbane
Published online: 30 June 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.276.13hau
Implicatures are generally conceptualised as additional thoughts, beliefs, intentions and desires that are intended by the speaker to be recognised by the hearer as intended by the speaker. However, implicatures are not simply cognitive constructs, but in being accomplished by persons in interaction, are arguably social actions in their own right. In this chapter, it is proposed that a proper account of implicature needs to be developed with respect to the broader inferential substrate from which implicatures arise. It is suggested that while the inferables that make up this inferential substrate generally remain embedded, that is, where talk progresses without participants orienting to the action that is accomplished through the inferable as an object of interactional business, they may, on occasion, be exposed by those participants as the focus of interactional business in that sequence. It is then proposed that a range of practices license participants to expose an inferable (or set of inferables), including instances of “prompting”, where a speaker positions another participant to make a pre-emptive offer through reporting (possible) troubles, difficulties or needs. It is concluded that given through implicating participants can implicitly orient to both moral and relational concerns, our understanding of implicatures should not be divorced from the inferential substrate of interaction in which they are invariably locally situated.
Article outline
  • 1.Implicature and inference
  • 2.The inferential substrate of interaction
  • 3.Embedded and exposed inferables in initial interactions
  • 4.Implicature as social action
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (73)
References
Ariel, Mira. 2016. “Revisiting the Typology of Pragmatic Interpretations.” Intercultural Pragmatics 13 (1): 1–35. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bach, Kent. 2012. “Saying, Meaning, and Implicating.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics, ed. by Keith Allan and Kasia M Jaszczolt, 47–67. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bertuccelli-Papi, M. 2000. Implicitness in Text and Discourse. Pisa: Edizoni ETS.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bianchi, Claudia. 2013. “Implicating.” In The Pragmatics of Speech Actions, ed. by Maria Sbisà and Ken Turner. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana. 1987. “Indirectness and Politeness in Requests: Same or Different?” Journal of Pragmatics 11: 131–146. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bolden, Galina B., and Jeffrey D Robinson. 2011. “Soliciting Accounts with Why-Interrogatives in Conversation.” Journal of Communication 61 (1): 94–119. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson. 1987. Politeness. Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, Herbert. 1997. “Dogmas of Understanding.” Discourse Processes 23: 567–598. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clift, Rebecca. 1999. “Irony in Conversation.” Language in Society 28 (4): 523–553. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan, and Michael Haugh. 2014. Pragmatics and the English Language. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Curl, Traci S. 2006. “Offers of Assistance: Constraints on Syntactic Design.” Journal of Pragmatics 38 (8): 1257–1280. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davis, Wayne. 1998. Implicature. Intention, Convention, and Principle in the Failure of Gricean Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drew, Paul. 1984. “Speakers’ Reportings in Invitation Sequences.” In Structures of Social Action, ed. by Maxwell J. Atkinson and John Heritage, 102–128. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drew, Paul, and Traci Walker. 2009. “ Going Too Far: Complaining, Escalating and Dissafiliation.” Journal of Pragmatics 41 (12): 2400–2414. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dynel, Marta. 2014. “A Survey of ‘Intercultural pragmatics’ and its Outlook on the Gricean Philosophy of Communication.” International Review of Pragmatics 6: 307–319. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Enfield, N.J. 2014. “Human Agency and the Infrastructure for Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 35–53. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gardner, Rod. 2007. “The Right Connections: Acknowledging Epistemic Progression in Talk.” Language in Society 36: 319–341. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garfinkel, Harold. 1964. “Studies of the Routine Grounds of Everyday Activities.” Social Problems 11 (3): 225–250. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gauker, Christopher. 2001. “Situated Inference Versus Conversational Implicature.” Nous 35 (2):163–189. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1956. “Embarassment and Social Organisation.” American Journal of Sociology 62: 264–271. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1981. Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grice, H.P. 1957. “Meaning.” Philosophical Review 66: 377–388. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1969. “Utterer’s Meaning and Intention.” The Philosophical Review 78 (2): 147–177. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1975. “Logic and Conversation.” In Syntax and Semantics, Volume 3. Speech Acts, ed. by Peter Cole and Jerry Morgan, 41–58. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grice, Paul. 1978. “Further Notes on Logic and Conversation”. In Syntax and Semantics Volume 9. Pragmatics, ed. by Peter Cole, 113–127. NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1989. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haugh, Michael. 2008. “The Place of Intention in the Interactional Achievement of Implicature.” In Intention, Common Ground and the Egocentric Speaker-Hearer, ed. by Istvan Kecskes and Jacob Mey, 45–86. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. “On Understandings of Intention: A Response to Wedgwood.” Intercultural Pragmatics 9 (2): 161–194. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013a. “Speaker Meaning and Accountability in Interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 48: 41–56. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013b. “Implicature, Inference and Cancellability.” In Perspectives on Pragmatics and Philosophy, ed. by Alessandro Capone, Franco Lo Piparo and Marco Carapezza. New York: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015a. Im/politeness Implicatures. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015b. “Impoliteness and Taking Offence in Initial Interactions.” Journal of Pragmatics 86: 36–42. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016a. “‘Just Kidding’: Teasing and Claims to Non-Serious Intent.” Journal of Pragmatics 95: 120–136. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016b. “Prompting as a Higher-Order Pragmatic Act.” In Pragmemes and Theories of Language Use, ed. by Keith Allan, Alessandro Capone and Istvan Kecskes, 167–190. New York: Springer.
. 2017. “Prompting Offers of Assistance in Interaction.” Pragmatics and Society 8(2): 183–207.
. Forthcoming. Getting Acquainted in Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Haugh, Michael, and Donal Carbaugh. 2015. “Self-Disclosure in Initial Interactions Amongst Speakers of American and Australian English.” Multilingua 34 (4): 461–493. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, John. 2012. “Epistemics in Action: Action Formation and Territories of Knowledge.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 45 (1): 1–29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Horn, Laurence. 2004. “Implicature.” In Handbook of Pragmatics, ed. by Laurence Horn and Gregory Ward, 3–28. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail. 1987. “On Exposed and Embedded Correction in Conversation.” In Talk and Social Organisation, ed. by Graham Button and John R E Lee, 81–100. Clevedon: Mutlilingual Matters.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1991. “List Construction as a Task and Resource.” In Interaction Competence, ed. by George Psathas, 63–92. New York: Irvington Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1993. “Caveat Speaker: Preliminary Notes on Recipient Topic-Shift Implicature.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 26 (1): 1–30. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. “Glossary of Transcript Symbols With an Introduction.” In Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation, ed. by Gene Lerner, 13–23. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kecskes, Istvan. 2013. “Why Do We Say What We Say the Way We Say It.” Journal of Pragmatics 48: 71–84. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kendrick, Kobin H, and Paul Drew. 2014. “The Putative Preference for Offers over Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 87–113. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. “Recruitments: Offers, Requests, and the Organization of Assistance in Interaction”. Research on Language and Social Interaction 49(1): 1–19. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lerner, Gene. 2013. “On the Place of Hesitating in Delicate Formulations: A Turn-Constructional Infrastructure for Collaborative Indiscretion”. In Conversational Repair and Human Understanding, ed. by Makoto Hayashi, Geoffrey Raymond, and Jack Sidnell, 95–134. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen. 2000. Presumptive Meanings. The Theory of Generalised Conversational Implicature. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C. 2013. “Action Formation and Ascription.” In Handbook of Conversation Analysis, ed. by Tanya Stivers and Jack Sidnell, 103–130. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lindström, Anna. 2005. “Language as Social Action. A Study of How Senior Citizens Request Assistance with Practical Tasks in the Swedish Home Help Service.” In Syntax and Lexis in Conversation, ed. by Auli Hakulinen and Margaret Selting, 209–230. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ogiermann, Eva. 2015. "Direct off-record requests? – 'Hinting' in family interactions." Journal of Pragmatics 86: 31-35. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Potter, Jonathan, and Alexa Hepburn. 2010. “Putting Aspiration into Words: ‘Laugh Particles’, Managing Descriptive Trouble and Modulating Action.” Journal of Pragmatics 42 (6): 1543–1555. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Raclaw, Joshua. 2013. Indexing Inferables and Organizational Shifts: ‘No’-Prefaces in English Conversation. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Colorado.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Raymond, Geoffrey. 2004. “Prompting Action: the Stand-Alone ‘so’ in Ordinary Conversation.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 37 (2): 185–218. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Robinson, Jeffrey D. 2004. “The Sequential Organisation of ‘Explicit’ Apologies in Naturally Occurring English.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 37 (3): 291–330. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey. 1992. Lectures on Conversation. Volume 1. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson. 1974. “A Simplest Systematics for the Organisation of Turn-Taking for Conversation.” Language 50: 696–735. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Saul, Jennifer. 2002a. “Speaker Meaning, What Is Said, and What Is Implicated.” Nous 36 (2): 228–248. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2002b. “What Is Said and Psychological Reality: Grice’s Project and Relevance Theorists Criticisms.” Linguistics and Philosophy 25 (3): 347–372. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel. 1968. “Sequencing in Conversational Openings.” American Anthropologist 70: 1075–1095. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. Sequence Organization in Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sendra, Veronica Crespo, Constanjin Kaland, Marc Swerts, and Pilar Prieto. 2013. “Perceiving Incredulity: The Role of Intonation and Face Gestures.” Journal of Pragmatics 47: 1–13. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sifianou, Maria. 1993. “Off-Record Indirectness and the Notion of Imposition.” Multilingua 12 (1): 69–79. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1997. “Politeness and Off-Record Indirectness.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 126: 163–179. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson. 1995. Relevance. Communication and Cognition. Second ed. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stevanovic, Melisa, and Anssi Peräkylä. 2012. “Deontic Authority in Interaction: The Right to Announce, Propose, and Decide.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 45 (3): 297–321. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya, and Federico Rossano. 2010. “Mobilising Response.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 43 (1): 3–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Terkourafi, Marina. 2005a. “Beyond the Micro-Level in Politeness Research.” Journal of Politeness Research 1 (2): 237–262. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. “The Puzzle of Indirect Speech.” Journal of Pragmatics 43 (11): 2861–2865. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. “Re-Assessing the Speech Act Schema: Twenty-First Century Reflections.” International Review of Pragmatics 5 (2): 197–216. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weiner, Matthew. 2006. "Are all conversational implicatures cancellable?" Analysis 66 (2): 127-130. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Welch, Denis. 2005. “The Representative.” NZ Listener. 1 October (Issue 3412). Available at [URL].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (14)

Cited by 14 other publications

Jahiu, Edona
2025. The laughter as a strategic device: Exploring its pragmatic functions in conversations. Journal of Language and Pragmatics Studies 4:2 ► pp. 121 ff. DOI logo
Altahmazi, Thulfiqar Hussein M.
2022. Impoliteness in Twitter diplomacy: offence giving and taking in Middle East diplomatic crises. Journal of Politeness Research 18:2 ► pp. 281 ff. DOI logo
Deppermann, Arnulf & Michael Haugh
2022. Action Ascription in Social Interaction. In Action Ascription in Interaction, ► pp. 3 ff. DOI logo
Deppermann, Arnulf & Julia Kaiser
2022. Intention Ascriptions as a Means to Coordinate Own Actions with Others’ Actions. In Action Ascription in Interaction, ► pp. 135 ff. DOI logo
Haugh, Michael
2022. Action Ascription, Accountability and Inference. In Action Ascription in Interaction, ► pp. 81 ff. DOI logo
Haugh, Michael
2024. Ostensible offers, politeness and sincere hypocrisy. In The Pragmatics of Hypocrisy [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 343], ► pp. 162 ff. DOI logo
Culpeper, Jonathan & Michael Haugh
2021. (Im)politeness and Sociopragmatics. In The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics, ► pp. 315 ff. DOI logo
Deppermann, Arnulf
2021. Social Actions. In The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics, ► pp. 69 ff. DOI logo
Parvaresh, Vahid & Tahmineh Tayebi
2021. Taking offence at the (un)said:Towards a more radical contextualist approach. Journal of Politeness Research 17:1 ► pp. 111 ff. DOI logo
Parvaresh, Vahid & Sayyed Amir Sheikhan
2019. Pragmatic functions of ‘sort of’ in Persian. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 29:1 ► pp. 86 ff. DOI logo
Haugh, Michael & Valeria Sinkeviciute
2018. Accusations and interpersonal conflict in televised multi-party interactions amongst speakers of (Argentinian and Peninsular) Spanish. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 6:2 ► pp. 248 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2020. Understanding Conversational Joking [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 310], DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2021. Topics and Settings in Sociopragmatics. In The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics, ► pp. 247 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2021. Fundamentals of Sociopragmatics. In The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics, ► pp. 13 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue