Why words are not enough for us.

In his ground-breaking article “Logic and Conversation”, Paul Grice noticed that we often try to convey far more than just the amalgam of the meanings of the words we use. As a consequence, we can usually distinguish not only what is said, but also what is meant or implicated through the utterance 

Conversational implicature

To conversationally implicate something in speaking, according to Grice, is to mean something that goes beyond what one says in such a way that it must be inferred from non-linguistic features of a conversational situation together with general principles of communication and co-operation.

The general principles Grice proposed are what he called the Cooperative principle and the Maxims of Conversation. According to Grice, the cooperative principle is a norm governing all cooperative interactions among humans.

Cooperative Principle: "Make your contribution such as it is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged." (Grice 1989: 26).

The conversational maxims can be thought of as precisifications of the cooperative principle that deal specifically with communication.

Maxim of Quantity: Information

• Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange.
• Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

Maxim of Quality: Truth