Explicature
Encyclopedia
Explicature is a technical term in pragmatics
, the branch of linguistics
that concerns the meaning given to an utterance by its context. The explicature of a sentence is what is explicitly said, as opposed to the implicature
, the information that the speaker conveys implicitly.
The truth value of a sentence is determined using its explicature. For example:
Imagine Jim and Raoul are driving across America from New York City to Seattle, Washington. Raoul is driving, and Jim falls asleep. When Jim wakes up, he asks Raoul, "Where are we?" Raoul replies, "We aren't there yet, but we've passed Chicago."
If Jim and Raoul's car is in fact five minutes outside Seattle and Raoul knows this, he may be accused of lying, since "We aren't there yet, but we've passed Chicago" in that context has the implicature "We are not too far past Chicago and still not near Seattle." Technically, however, Raoul's statement was true, because the explicature—at the time of utterance, Jim and Raoul had passed Chicago and were not yet in Seattle—was true.
H.P. Grice, one of the founders of pragmatics, held that explicature consisted only of the literal meaning of a sentence, while implicature included the intentional meaning. Later linguists have amended this definition, because in order to determine the truth value of a sentence, enough context must be known to be able to disambiguate ambiguous expressions, assign references to variables, interpret indexical
expressions, fill in ellipses, and so on. In the example above, the explicature of Raoul's reply must include the context of who "we" refers to (Jim and Raoul) and what "there" means (Seattle), or else it would be impossible to determine his statement's truth value.
Pragmatics
Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, and linguistics. It studies how the...
, the branch of linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
that concerns the meaning given to an utterance by its context. The explicature of a sentence is what is explicitly said, as opposed to the implicature
Implicature
Implicature is a technical term in the pragmatics subfield of linguistics, coined by H. P. Grice, which refers to what is suggested in an utterance, even though neither expressed nor strictly implied by the utterance...
, the information that the speaker conveys implicitly.
The truth value of a sentence is determined using its explicature. For example:
Imagine Jim and Raoul are driving across America from New York City to Seattle, Washington. Raoul is driving, and Jim falls asleep. When Jim wakes up, he asks Raoul, "Where are we?" Raoul replies, "We aren't there yet, but we've passed Chicago."
If Jim and Raoul's car is in fact five minutes outside Seattle and Raoul knows this, he may be accused of lying, since "We aren't there yet, but we've passed Chicago" in that context has the implicature "We are not too far past Chicago and still not near Seattle." Technically, however, Raoul's statement was true, because the explicature—at the time of utterance, Jim and Raoul had passed Chicago and were not yet in Seattle—was true.
H.P. Grice, one of the founders of pragmatics, held that explicature consisted only of the literal meaning of a sentence, while implicature included the intentional meaning. Later linguists have amended this definition, because in order to determine the truth value of a sentence, enough context must be known to be able to disambiguate ambiguous expressions, assign references to variables, interpret indexical
Indexicality
In linguistics and in philosophy of language, an indexical behavior or utterance points to some state of affairs. For example, I refers to whoever is speaking; now refers to the time at which that word is uttered; and here refers to the place of utterance...
expressions, fill in ellipses, and so on. In the example above, the explicature of Raoul's reply must include the context of who "we" refers to (Jim and Raoul) and what "there" means (Seattle), or else it would be impossible to determine his statement's truth value.