Meaning-implication and inference-formation in the United States presidential press conferences

Abstract EN

The question of how people understand what others aresaying, even when they do not state their intentionsstraightforwardly, has been debated ever since Grice putforward a theory of implicature in 1967 (Thomas, 1995).

Thatis, speakers can implicate more or different meanings via theuse of implicatures.

After Grice's work, there have been anumber of other works on implicatures.

On the other hand, there is some research on how people infer each other'sintentions.

What has not gained attention yet is developingboth implicature and inference into one unified theory; thisissue is dealt with within this paper.

The paper alsoinvestigates how different types of implicatures are producedand how possible inferences are formed in fourteen pressconferences, held for Barack Obama the ex-president of theUnited States of America, as a type of political discourse inwhich language plays a vital role.

Purposes of implicaturegeneration, different models and methods of inferenceformation are also discussed and analyzed.

The paper, which is an extract of an MA thesis entitled (An Investigation ofSyntax-Pragmatics Interface of Implicature and InferenceFormation in the US Presidential Press Conferences), mainlyconcludes that implicature and inference-formation are twosides of the same coin, and forming inferences by thejournalists and the audience for implicatures generated by USex-president, Barack Obama is not necessarily deductive, inductive or abductive alone, but it apparently enjoys The question of how people understand what others aresaying, even when they do not state their intentionsstraightforwardly, has been debated ever since Grice putforward a theory of implicature in 1967 (Thomas, 1995).

Thatis, speakers can implicate more or different meanings via theuse of implicatures.

After Grice's work, there have been anumber of other works on implicatures.

On the other hand, there is some research on how people infer each other'sintentions.

What has not gained attention yet is developingboth implicature and inference into one unified theory; thisissue is dealt with within this paper.

The paper alsoinvestigates how different types of implicatures are producedand how possible inferences are formed in fourteen pressconferences, held for Barack Obama the ex-president of theUnited States of America, as a type of political discourse inwhich language plays a vital role.

Purposes of implicaturegeneration, different models and methods of inferenceformation are also discussed and analyzed.

The paper, which is an extract of an MA thesis entitled (An Investigation ofSyntax-Pragmatics Interface of Implicature and InferenceFormation in the US Presidential Press Conferences), mainlyconcludes that implicature and inference-formation are twosides of the same coin, and forming inferences by thejournalists and the audience for implicatures generated by USex-president, Barack Obama is not necessarily deductive, inductive or abductive alone, but it apparently enjoys all.