In China, many English learners encounter miscommunications when they are involved in the conversations with native speakers. The occurrence of miscommunications is usually attributed to misinterpretations of the speaker’s real intentions. This is due to their lack of necessary communicative competence．源/自:751:;论-文'网www.751com.cn

 In this paper, the author will make an analysis on applying conversational implicature to college English listening teaching. In the course of communication，if the hearer has some knowledge about conversational implicature，he can often infer the meaning of the speaker’s utterance and communicate successfully．

Thus, mastering conversational implicature is very crucial in improving students’ listening comprehension.

2. Literature Review 源/自:751:;论-文'网www.751com.cn

H.P. Grice，the American philosopher，develops the concept of conversational implicature，which is an essential theory about how people use language. After that, some linguists showed great interest in Grice’s new theory and did further study on conversational implicature. Being one important theory of pragmatics, the conversational implicature has been the research focus of many linguists in China. And the researches on conversational implicature are fruitful.

     As early as 1979, Xu Guozhang translated Austin’s How to do things with words. And In 1989, Chen Rong described the concept, features, formation and inference of Conversational Implicature in the article on Grice’s Conversational Implicature Theory. He pointed that to communicate successfully, it is not enough for students to master only language knowledge. They also need pragmatic competence to a certain extent. The three articles written by Xu Shenghua: Pragmatic Inference(1991), New Gricean Theory of Conversational Implicature and Pragmatic Inference(1993) discussed conversational implicature and its new development. The paper by Zhong Baichao entitled The Development of Neo-Gricean Theory of Conversational Implicature in China, summarized Xu Shenghua’s three articles, and made a thorough conclusion of the new development of conversational implicature in China. However, uptill now, few scholars have highlighted the application of conversational implicature in English teaching, in particular, English listening teaching. Therefore, this paper is intended to explore Grice’s conversational implicature and its application in college English listening teaching for the purpose of cultivating students’ competence of inferring conversational implicature, as well as improving their listening comprehension.   

This thesis consists of five parts. The first part is the introduction. It mainly deals with the background and the purpose of the study. The second part is a review of some scholars’ researches on conversational implicature. The third part gives an elaborate description of theories about conversational implicature. The fourth part is the body part which makes an analysis of several roles that conversational implicature plays in college English listening teaching. This section first briefly analyzes the traditional method employed in English listening teaching, and points out some problems existing in the traditional way of English listening teaching. Then it discusses on listening materials in college English. At last, it focuses on the application of conversational implicature in college English listening teaching. This paper also presents some other suggestions for English listening teaching. The last part is the conclusion. Based on conversational implicature theory, this thesis utilizes some examples to illustrate the constructive role such a theory exerts in English listening teaching.