国外级差含义研究述评

An overview of scalar implicature in post-Gricean pragmatics

由于经典格赖斯会话含义理论不能很好地解释级差含义,后格赖斯语用学者提出了不同的级差含义解释模式。文章考察了不同的级差含义解释模式,指出了目前级差含义研究存在的五个问题:1)非蕴含关系集合是否产生级差含义;2)级差含义是语用的,还是语义的;3)级差含义是不是默认意义;4)级差含义是不是与语言系统有关;(5)级差含义是不是听话人推导的意义。最后,文章指出,级差含义是突显的,不依赖语境的默认意义,听话人依赖语言使用的常规惯例自动地推导级差含义。

Since Horn introduced scales into pragmatics in 1972, scalar implicature has been brought to the forefront of attention in post-Gricean pragmatics, and different models have been proposed since the Gricean theory of conversational implicature cannot provide adequate accounts for it. This paper presents an overview of such models and discusses their theoretical concerns about the problems of Horn scales and the nature of scalar implicature. It concludes that scalar implicature is the salient, context-free default meaning which is automatically inferred by relying on the conventional use of language.