Deception in Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker: Discourse Analysis
Loading...
Date
2017
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Mouloud Mammeri University of Tizi-Ouzou
Abstract
The present study explores the theme of deception in Harold Pinter’s play the Caretaker from
linguistic perspectives. It focuses on the forms of verbal deception revealed in the characters’
discourse by applying Grice’s theory of Conversational Implicature (CI), mainly his four
Maxims of conversation: quality, quantity, relation, and manner. The analyzed data are
selected from the characters’ dialogues in which the forms of deception are apparently
revealed through the violation of the maxims. The results of the study indicate that the
characters in the Caretaker are violating all maxims, and all forms of deception are revealed
through the violation of one or more than one maxim; however, fabrication is the most
apparent form of verbal deception in The Caretaker; thereby, the quality maxim is the most
violated maxim.
Description
60p.:ill;30cm.(+cd)
Keywords
The Caretaker, Forms of Deception, Discourse Analysis, Grice’s Conversational maxims, Implicature
Citation
Language and Communication