Analysis Of The Request Conversation In Far From The Madding Crowd From The Perspective Of The Politeness Principle

Far from the Madding Crowd published in 1874 is the first novel that gains Thomas Hardy great popularity. The novel tells us a love story between a young, arrogant, vain girl Bathsheba and her three admirers. Of the whole story, request conversations become one of the most interesting parts. Many researchers and critics have done their bit to this masterpiece from a variety of angles these years, such as tragedy, ecological ethics, ecocriticism, feminism, and so on. While few study has been done on the request conversations from the perspective of politeness principle.In 1983, Leech proposed politeness principle with its six maxims: tact maxim, generosity maxim, approbation maxim, modest maxim, agreement maxim and sympathy, which intend to avoid disputes and make the conversation easier to go by maximizing benefit to other and minimizing cost to other. Politeness principle can be used to analyze request conversations. First, quantitative analysis has been used to collect the maxims these three admirers have used in their request conversations; second, qualitative analysis has been used to detect the characteristic of each admirer from the use of the maxims. By analyzing the conversations, first this thesis finds that various maxims have been used in each admirer's request conversation. While Gabriel prefers to use tact maxim, generosity maxim, modesty maxim, and agreement maxim; Mr. Boldwood prefers to use tact maxim, generosity maxim, and agreement maxim, and Troy prefers to use approbation maxims. Second the usage of different maxims reflects that Gabriel is diligent, modest, tolerant, and kind; Mr. Boldwood is a single-minded man who is quite straight and narrow, with great generosity, perseverance, and honesty; Troy is a dishonest, frivolous, dissolute, cynical, and sophisticated man.Through the analyzing of the request conversations in Far from the Madding Crowd this thesis in one way reaffirms the function and significance of politeness principle in creating and appreciating literature works, while in another finds out the characteristics of each admirer from their request conversations. What's more, this thesis provides readers with a new way to understand the characters, their relationship, and plot development of the novel.