Conversational Implicature in Silent Answers: Its Aims and Purposes

Abstract

This research assumes that it is possible to apply the conversational implicature theory, which is one of the mechanisms in pragmatic research, to silent answers that represent a model of literary and rhetorical discourse. If pragmatics focuses on the usage and performance dimensions of the language of discourse, starting with the speaker’s intentions and purposes, and passing through the role of the context and the communicative position in revealing them, then silent answers are characterized by choosing the most effective method corresponding to the context of situation and selecting the appropriate phrases that reveal their purposes.

This research aims to reveal not only the principles and rules of conversational implicature that are violated in silent answers, but also the principles of dialogue that have been preserved at the same time. Therefore, the research aims to investigate the purposes of dialogic obligation in these answers.

The research’s results have shown that the conversational implicature was achieved in silent answers by violating the principles and rules of Grice’s theory, and this violation had multiple goals and purposes. In addition, despite the violation of the dialogue principles, the principle of cooperation was achieved, as the respondent is keen for the interlocutor to achieve his communicative purposes by reasoning and through the contexts