Exploring Conversational Impliature In The Awakening:a Pragmatic Stylistic Approach

The Awakening published in1899, depicts the process of female protagonist Edna’s awakening to be self-assertive after a series of complicated love affairs with three male characters, the beloved, the paramour apart from her husband. The book is of great value for language learners to do research because not only are the words in it fluid and refined, but there’re dozens of images which make the book picturesque and appealing. The Awakening has been alive for more than a century, enjoying great popularity within half a century. Many researchers and critics have done their bit to interpret the classic feminist masterpiece in a variety of angles, such as Feminism, Romanticism, Realism, Symbolism, etc. but very few essays are from Stylistic viewpoint. Up to now, there hasn’t been any thesis, foreign nor domestic periodicals or dissertations as the internet indicates, have ever applied Conversational Implicature—one of significant theories of Pragmatic Stylistics to the interpretation of The Awakening. Therefore being original and innovative motivates the writer to choose the subject.Stylistics is the bridge built over linguistic theories and literary texts. Pragmatic Stylistics as a new part of it having made great progress since1990s, refers to the analysis of literary texts based on pragmatic theories. Gricean Theory of Conversational Implicature is one of fundamentally analyzing patterns. It’s inextricably related to co-operative principle, which includes four basic maxims:The Maxim of Quantity, Quality, Relation and Manner. But these maxims sound too good to be true. Actually, in reality, no one speaks in that way all the time, one may intentionally violate one or more maxims, for instance, both understatement and overstatement violate the Quantity Maxim; Telling hyperbole and lies violate the Quality Maxim; Giving associated clues and giving hints have the Relation Maxim violated; Being obscure as well as failure to be brief or concise has the Manner Maxim violated. The violation of the maxims generates Conversational Implicature. For example, understatement may reflect the speaker’s negative emotions:impatience, scorn, etc. While overstatement may be regarded as the show-off. Giving associated clues possibly reflects the speaker’s little interest in the topic and giving hints is caused by his embarrassment about how to reply. Being obscure is probably because one feels something hard to speak out and failure to be brief or concise is intended to catch the hear’s attention. It’s been proved that analyzing the character’s temperament or image in literary works by means of conversational implicature is likely to be objective and convincing.The thesis making an attempt on examining the overtone, the implied meaning caused by violating four maxims of cooperative principle in the process of conversation aims at unveiling the conversational purposes, interrelationships and temperament of the four protagonists.There are totally nineteen excerpts violating cooperative principle in the novel. Five excerpts have the Quantity Maxim violated (four belong to understatement breaking the first submaxim, one belongs to overstatement breaking the second submaxim); Four excerpts have the Quality Maxim violated (all break the first submaxim by telling hyperbole once and lies three times); Five excerpts have the Relation Maxim violated (by giving associated clues twice and giving hints three times); Five excerpts have the Manner Maxim violated (by being obscure once and failure to be brief or concise four times).Each slice of conversation that violates the four maxims contains plentifulconversational implicature. By way of weighing and digging out the implied meaning during the talk, we are able to see clearly that the three male protagonists (her husband, lover and paramour) leading Edna to awakening all have their own severe defects in terms of temperament. Thus none of them is fit to the perfect image combined with physical and mental glamour that Edna yearns for, which, in fact, is the direct cause that makes Edna end up herself in the sea showing her awakening.It’s significant to read classic literary works in creative and profound way. By means of Conversational Implicature we are given a clear vision about the conversing purposes of these characters, their relationships as well as the striking features of their temperament, finding out the direct cause that makes Edna end up with tragedy. The theory presents its uniqueness in the process of interpreting The Awakening, and in the meantime provides a brand-new angle for re-reading the classic feminist masterpiece.