Grice for graphics: pragmatic implicature in network diagrams

Petre and Green [1992] observe intriguing phenomena which occur when real designers use complex graphical representations. They also offer a promising account for these phenomena. This paper explores an alternative account, which relies on the notion of graphical implicature. Whether or not the current account is useful has broader significance, because if it is useful, it helps supply the first premise for the following argument: (i) there are certain parallels between pragmatic phenomena in natural language (NL) and graphical representation; (ii) formal techniques have been developed for modelling some of the NL phenomena; and thus (iii) once the graphical data are better-understood, we may be able to treat them with formal techniques from NL pragmatics.