Conversational Implicature

Conversational implicature is come from a fact situation that is covered by conversation and consist of utterances. It also derived from a general principle of conversation plus a number of maxims which speaker normally obeys. It can be seen in the example below :

Syifa : "Do you like my new shirt?"

+) Lucy :" The color's not bad".

In the example, Lucy does not tell the truth of her opinion that she only likes the color of Syifa's shirt. Then Syifa should catch Lucy's opinion more than one meaning, it is between Lucy does not like Syifa's shirt or she does. Lucy has conveyed more than she said.

The role of conversational implicature in conversation is very important for both two participants (speaker and listener). Grice (1975) notion of conversational implicature is the theory how people used language. It means that conversational implicature is used to prevent misunderstanding about the listener's interpretation of the speaker's intended meaning that they not actually say. Conversational implicature is the assumption of the participants when they want to deliver the message or information and it followed by cooperative principle and the four maxims. Another example of conversational implicature is : 

Anne : "Do you want to eat bread or friedrice as our breakfast today ?"

+) Diana : "I want to eat salad".

Based on the example above, Diana's answer does not relate with Anne's question. Anne has mentioned the menu of breakfast, but Diana prefers to choose salad as her breakfast. Diana certainly implies that she does not like kinds of menu that Anne has mentioned before. 

Conversational implicature is an implied meaning which is contained in conversation, it is also prevent misunderstanding between speaker and listener. Grice (1975) as quoted in Levinson (1983) distinguished conversational implicature into two types, those are generalized conversational implicature and particularized conversational implicature.