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Abstract Abstract: The concept of cancellability has recently bogged down in controversies, despite its status as an essential characteristic in the Gricean conversational implicature. Scholars are divided with regard to the essence, scope, means and plausibility of cancellation. Reviewing and reflecting upon the available viewpoints, this paper argues that the causes accounting for the ongoing debate are fourfold: divergences in theoretical perspectives, in understandings of the status of speakers’ intention in implicature generation, in scopes of cancellation, and in ways of defining/conceiving related notions. It is found that varied theoretical backgrounds lead to the controversies on implicature cancellability, and such indeterminacy contributes to the cancellability of implicatures. The motivation for conversational implicature cancellation partly originates in speakers’ concerns about accountability. Difference in meaning actions impacts on the speaker’s involvement in, and commitment to, the indirectly communicated meaning, hence the plausibility of implicature cancellation. This study will shed light on the understanding of features of conversational implicature, feasibility and motivations of implicature cancellation.
Key words: conversational implicature; cancellability; intention; speaker’s accountability
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