Conversational Implicature In Cross-Cultural Communication And English Teaching

Traditionally, we have emphasized the explanation of grammatical rules, vocabulary, and structures in English teaching, and neglected the understanding of the implied meaning of what is being taught. The theories of conversational implicature are some of the most important theories in pragmatics. This paper begins with the introduction of Grice's theory of conversational implicature, which covers the co-operative principle, the relationship between the co-operative principle and conversational implicature, and the features of conversational implicature. It also discusses the origin and difference between Grice's theory and neo-Gricean theory during the development of the theory of implicature. Then, it explores the understanding and application of conversational implicature in our daily conversations, literary language and cross-cultural communication. At last, it argues the relationship between the theory of implicature and English teaching, and its effects on English teaching.1. The implied meaning can be divided into natural and non-natural meaning, which is basic in Grice's theory of conversational implicature. It is the co-operative principle that forms the core of his theory and the essential way to the success in calculating the implicature in communications. The conversational implicature has five properties: cancellability, non-detachability, calculability, non-conventionality and indeterminacy.2. With the development of the theory of implicature, Neo-Gricean theory origins from Grice's theory. But difference exists between the two in terms of the way to infer the implicature, which has been broadened in neo-Gricean theory.3. People usually depend on the theory of implicature in understanding our daily conversations, literary works, and cross-cultural communication.4. The application of the theories of conversational implicature in English teaching is helpful to help the students to analyze and understand the difficulties of teaching materials thoroughly and help them to understand and apply the language correctly, and therefore, promote English teaching and develop the students' pragmatic competence...