This chapter explores the role of context in the computation of implicit pragmatic meanings (implicatures). In the classic view of Gricean and neo-Gricean pragmatics, conversational implicatures are triggered by the Cooperative Principle and the maxims of conversation, and are defined as non-contextual, with the exception of particularized conversational implicatures (PCIs). On the other hand, it is assumed that generalized conversational implicatures (GCIs) and conventional implicatures (CIs) are not contextual, although GCIs can be defeated by the context or denied by the speaker. This non-contextual approach to pragmatics (the Gricean turn) has given rise to a default approach to implicatures. The second purpose of this chapter is to tackle the contextual dimension of neo-Gricean pragmatics, which has been developed by exponents of neo-Gricean pragmatics. Their approaches to pragmatics, limited to GCIs as scalar implicatures, are based either on pragmatic principles, the Q-Principle and R- or I-principle (Horn, Levinson), or on the reformulation of conversational maxims and reasoning (Gazdar, Chierchia, Fox). It is argued that the focus on GCIs, although it should minimize the role of context in the generation of implicatures, demonstrates on the contrary the pervasive function of context, which is not limited to implicature cancellation.

In this chapter, Myrto Grigoroglou and Anna Papafragou explore what seems to be a paradox about the development of pragmatic abilities: while very young children are able to perform tasks which demonstrate what is required for pragmatic reasoning, certain areas of their pragmatic performance do not become adult-like until much later. Focusing on the much-discussed topic of scalar implicature, they propose that performance in tasks designed to elicit the derivation of such an implicature is significantly affected by the nature of the contextual material provided. When, for example, children appear not to understand an utterance of the form ‘some X are Y’ as suggesting ‘not all X are Y’, it may be because they have not seen the potential relevance in the particular context of the thought that all X are Y.

Nicholas Allott considers how relevance theory can be seen as responding to doubts about the possibility of any kind of systematic pragmatic theory. He considers three sceptical positions: Fodor’s argument that pragmatic processes are not amenable to scientific study because they are unencapsulated (highly context-sensitive), Chomsky’s claim that human intentional action is a mystery rather than a scientifically tractable problem, and a third view which maintains that intentional communication is too complex for systematic study. Allott argues that work in relevance theory can be seen as successfully challenging these sceptical views and he gives concrete examples of its achievements.