An Analysis Of Conversational Implicature In Tess Of The D' Urbervilles From The Perspective Of The Cooperative Principle

Pragmatics, as an important component of linguistics has been increasingly paid attention to. It is made up of a lot of theories, of which Grice's Cooperative Principle and Conversational Implicature Theory play a very important role in language research. Many a scholar has engaged in studying related theories in order to make communication more clear and smooth. In the 1970s, the combination of pragmatics and literature was introduced by some linguists. Gradually, these scholars attempt to appreciate literary works from the perspective of pragmatics. This thesis as an interdisciplinary study of pragmatics and literature, intends to analyze the conversational implicature in detail in Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles from the perspective of pragmatics.Hardy is one of the representatives of English critical realism at the turn of the 19th century. The background of Hardy's novels is set almost always in Wessex. The author's characters are for the most part of the poorer rural classes. He displays his deep sense of moral sympathy for England's working-classes, particularly for rural women. There are almost 20 long novels in his life. Undoubtedly, the most popular novel is Tess of the d'Urbervilles, which is generally considered as his finest novel.As one of his masterpieces, Tess of the d'Urbervilles was studied and commented on by scholars in various ways, such as from the perspectives of feminism, fatalism, symbolism and so on. Tess of the d'Urbervilles, to some extent, has great impact on English literature. The criticisms and reviews on the well-known novel have been numerous in number and various in approaches. These reviews are mainly surveyed with the emphasis on the subject matters and approach. Moreover, the majority of readers prefer to analyze this classic work from the view of literature—the character's reasons for death and her tragic destiny. But people seldom approach this novel from the angle of pragmatics. And this thesis tries to apply Grice's Cooperative Principle (CP) to the analysis of the conversational implicature in Tess of the d'Urbervilles.Grice's CP is used to explain how the implicature(implied meaning) is produced and interpreted. When the speaker would not follow CP but violates the maxims, the listener should realize the difference between what the speaker says and what he means. At this moment, conversational implicature is generated. CP is to clarify why people use indirect expressions to convey their real intention.The main body of this thesis is a detailed analysis of the conversational implicature produced by the selected examples from Tess of the d'Urbervilles. The illustrations are classified into different types in conformity with their violation of each maxim of Cooperative Principle. The present paper is aimed at analyzing the application of conversational implicature in the novel in detail to reveal the characters'inner world and contribute to a better understanding of this world classic work.