Perspective-taking in deriving implicatures: The listener's perspective is important too

Katsos, N, de Linares, BG, Ostashchenko, E ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4817-5753 and Wilson, E (2023) Perspective-taking in deriving implicatures: The listener's perspective is important too. Cognition, 241. 105582. ISSN 0010-0277

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Abstract

Theories of meaning propose that listeners understand a speaker's implicit meaning thanks to mutually assumed norms of conversation that take into account what the speaker has said, as well as contextual factors, including what the speaker knows. Emerging psycholinguistic research shows that listeners derive a particular kind of implicit meaning, quantity implicatures, when their speaker is knowledgeable about the situation but tend to not derive it otherwise. In this article we focus on if and how listeners use the knowledge that is available only to themselves, i.e., the listener's perspective, while deriving implicatures. To do so, we explore the derivation of ad hoc quantity implicature in situations where the speaker does or does not have full knowledge, while, in the latter case, the listener has two types of privileged knowledge. Two versions of a study with neurotypical English-speaking adults show that listeners are influenced by their own perspective while deriving implicatures, depending on the type of knowledge available to them. We discuss the implications of these findings for models of pragmatic interpretative strategies.