Dictionary

explicature en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ɪkˈsplɪkət͡ʃɚ/ (General-American)
• /ˈɛksplɪkətʃə/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /ɪkˈsplɪkətʃə/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /ɛkˈsplɪkət͡ʃɚ/ (General-American)
• /ɛkˈsplɪkətʃə/ (Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

From explicate + -ure, after implicature.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) Something explicitly expressed in an utterance, as opposed to what is implicit.
   • If the speaker was your flat-mate and you had a habit of borrowing her property without permission, she might be asking you if you'd 'borrowed' the book she owned (explicature) and the utterance might be taken as a demand for its return. 2013, Peter Grundy, Doing Pragmatics, page 136:
   • In relevance theory terms, he must construct a hypothesis about the explicit content of Ally's utterance;that is, he mustrely upon both the words she uses in this utterance and an inferencing process to construct an explicature. 2012, Jodie Clark, Language, Sex and Social Structure:

Forms