"Grice's Theory of Implicature"

This paper is an overview of the theory of implicature by Herbert Paul Grice, as it is an important concept in philosophy of language. It is an action of suggesting a meaning that goes beyond the literal understanding of the utterance. Grice distinguished between two general types of implicatures: conversational and conventional. Conversational implicature has two subtypes: particularized and generalized conversational implicature. This paper examines the distinction between two and elaborates on the theoretical background of the linguistic phenomenon. It also provides an account of the Cooperative Principle and Grice’s conversational maxims, which are vital contributors to the theory. The maxims are divided into four categories and analysed in terms of the consequences for not observing them.