Language As A Weapon Of Menace

The Nobel Prize laureate in literature of 2005 and the most important contemporary British playwright, Harold Pinter has charted a territory in the theatrical field. Pinter's plays evoke critics'desire for study. His theme of menace and his use of language have become the hot academic subjects. Although many critics have researched into Pinter's menace theme and Pinter's language, the few researches into the connections between his menace theme and his language lack thorough analysis and mostly adopt a purely literary analytical approach. Therefore, this thesis investigates Pinter's menace theme mainly by a linguistic approach, more specifically, from the perspective of the function of his language in conveying the menace theme.This thesis constructs a thorough conversation analysis of Pinter's The Caretaker, a successful play in his phase of"comedies of menace", on the basis of the conversational implicature theory, the turn-taking system and previous scholars'researches into the relationship between the power and the turn-taking. The former provides a powerful explanative instrument to explore the characters'implied intentions; the latter provides the theoretical foundation and the insight for studying the characters'use of power strategies in their conversation.The analysis of conversational implicatures in The Caretaker demonstrates that all the three characters in the play deliberately flout the conversational maxims for implied intentions. Mick launches verbal attacks on Davies, who does the same to Aston, both for getting control over the other. In addition, the characters refuse explicit communication for self-concealment because self-revelation is dangerous. Both the verbal violence and the refusal of explicit communication tightly connect Pinter's menace theme. Since among the three characters in The Caretaker, the major conflict lies between Aston and Davies, this thesis analyzes the turn-taking of Aston and Davies'dialogues in four confrontation scenes selected from the three acts. The analysis demonstrates that both Aston and Davies in their conflicts and battles use language as a weapon to strive for power and dominance. The power relationship between Aston and Davies changes as the conversation proceeds, and their loss and gain of the power closely connect with their use of power strategies. The conclusion from the analysis of The Caretaker is reached that there is omnipresence of menace in the dialogues of Pinter's characters, and Pinter's unique use of language is an effective approach to conveying the menace theme.