Implication Analysis of the Conversations between Darcy and Elizabeth in the Film Pride and Prejudice

Abstract：Grice’s Conversational Implicature Theory and Leech’s Politeness Principle are applied in this thesis to analyze the conversations between Darcy and Elizabeth，the leading characters in Pride and Prejudice，and to find the implication and factors affecting their conversations，aiming at helping English readers and learners understand the film and the literature work better.

Key words：conversational implcature；Conversational Implicature Theory；Cooperative Principle；Politeness Principle；Pride and Prejudice

Ⅰ Introduction

The novel Pride and Prejudice is a glistening masterpiece，written by Jane Austen，an English distinguished woman writer in the nineteenth century for jeering at the contemporary society suffusing an air of hypocrisy and conceit，vanity and selfishness，vulgarity and snobbishness in noble society and eulogizing the courage and spirit for the lovers to pursue their true love in the traditional society by exploiting Darcy and Elizabeth’s love story.It was adapted into a famous film in 1995 with six sequels，engraved with vivid characters，for their quick-witted，resourceful and humorous conversations combined with reserved but bitter satire.

This paper tries to apply Grice’s Conversational Implicature Theory，combining with Leech’s Politeness Principle to analyze the conversations between Darcy and Elizabeth，in the film Pride and Prejudice，aiming at helping English readers and learners better understanding literature work and the basic theory and principles of conversational implicature，leaving a guidance to analyze characters’ conversations at specific occasions to grasp the underlying meaning more correctly and comprehensively.It is significant and practical that English learners can improve the ability of expression，and advance the ability to comprehend and communicate effectively in the actual life through their learning to analyze conversational implicature.

Ⅱ Definition of Conversational Implicature and Grice’s Theory

Conversational implicature analysis （CIA） is an emerging and significant study in the field linguistics.But the CI has been defined variously by different linguists and scholars nowadays.Levision （2000） defines that CI is reasoning under the condition of untrue value.Dai Weidong （2002） and He Zhaoxiong （2003） ，the linguists in China，believe that the essence of CI，presupposing the observance of the cooperative principle （CP），is deduced the real meaning in conversations and it explains the implications under the literal one on the basis of contexts and related information.Briefly，CI is underlying information limited by contexts and communicators’ intention.

Although Grice’s theory has been accepted widely，there are somethings insufficient in it.Leech （1983） is convinced that the CP can be supplemented，for which he proposed the PP.He holds that a conflict arises，in which the CP cannot deal with，the PP should take into effect to minimize the conflict between the participants and maintain a harmonious relation.The PP is illustrated in six maxims as follows.

Firstly，the tact maxim includes minimizing cost to other and maximizing benefit to other.

Secondly，the generosity maxim requires to minimize benefit to self while maximize cost to self.

Thirdly，the approbation maxim holds to minimize dispraise of other and maximize praise of other.

And modesty maxim considers to minimize praise of self while maximize dispraise of self.

In addition to the above，the agreement maxim is to minimize the disagreement between the participants and maximize agreement between them.

Finally，the sympathy maxim believes to minimize antipathy and maximize sympathy between self and other.

Ⅲ Implication of Conversations between Darcy and Elizabeth by Violating Cooperative Principle

It is tried to acquire the underlying implication by analyzing the conversations，including 28 turn-takings of Darcy（D） and 25 of Elizabeth（E），which induces to the climax of the conflict between the heroes.And it is found that the heroes do not always observe the CP during their conversations.

Violating the Quality Maxim.

The quality maxim requires that the collocutors should not say something untrue or lack of evidence when they are in a conversation.But it can be caught that the heroes’ conversational implicature is successfully produced by the violation of this maxim.And their conversations are usually pushed ahead by means of using the figure speeches of irony and satire.When Darcy invites Elizabeth to dance with him at the first time，the conversation is as follow：

D：I would be happy if you would dance with me，Miss Bennet.

E：Thank you.But excuse me，I...am not inclined to dance...Mr.Darcy is all politeness...I beg you would excuse me.

Ⅳ Implication of Conversations between Darcy and Elizabeth by Observing Politeness Principle

It is found that while the conversations of the heroes violate the CP，they sometimes observe some maxims of the PP.

Observing the Approbation Maxim.

According to the approbation maxim，the conversations between the heroes are shown to observe the maxim of maximizing praise of other.When Elizabeth wants to verify the rumor about Darcy.

E：Merely to the illustration of your character.I’m trying to make it out.

D：What is your success？

E：I don’t get on at all.I hear such different accounts of you as to puzzle me exceedingly.

D：I wish that you wouldn’t attempt to sketch my character at the present moment.The performance should reflect no credit on either of us.

Ⅴ Reasons for Violating the Cooperative Principle but Observing Politeness Principle

Different Social Status and Class.

What is sketched in Austen’s work is a society in which one’s social class and status are distinctively distinguished.Those who were born in an honorable class naturally possess a respectable status.

In the story，there exists an enormous disparity between Darcy and Elizabeth.Darcy comes from an upper class，a fairly prosperous family.It is no doubt that he lives in an inherently distinguished life.Compared with him，Elizabeth is in an average and humble birth，neither wealthy nor honorable.Therefore，a distinguished inequality in social status is naturally obvious between them，for which more humble and modest manner is presented to Elizabeth.So，an implication indicates that the inequality of social class and status is one of the reasons can lead to the collocutors’ violating the CP while observing the PP.

Ⅵ Conclusion

Findings and Implications.

Since conversational implicature has a great influence on communications，it is well worth being comprehended.However，the implicature in the conversations of literature films has not aroused much concern in recent years，especially from the perspective of CP and PP.This thesis focuses on the conversations between Darcy and Elizabeth in the film Pride and Prejudice，which is adapted from the masterpiece of Jane Austen.It applies the methods of literature analysis，data analysis and a comprehensive analysis with comment in this thesis，trying to analyze how the heroes violate the CP but obey the PP to create the conversational implicature and to analyze what reasons affect them，aiming to acquire some hints for readers and learners who would like to study English culture，practice oral English in a real communication and advance the ability to communicate in real life through literature films.

In this research，critical findings and implications are acquired through the analysis of the corpus.On one hand，most of the conversations between Darcy and Elizabeth are found to violate the maxims of the CP of the Conversational Implicature Theory：the quantity maxim，the quality maxim，the relevant maxim and the manner maxim；but on the other hand，the heroes do not always violate the CP，they sometimes are inclined to imply somethings indirectly by observing some maxims of Leech’s PP：the approbation maxim，the agreement maxim and the sympathy maxim.However，the conversational implicatures under the literal meaning are clear and easy to be seized from the perspectives.

To summarize，conversational implicature，is not difficult for English readers and learners to master，whether it is in the filmic works or in the real life，so long as it is caught and analyzed with corresponding theories and principles.It is verified that they can widen the knowledge about the western culture and improve the ability of communication in life by seizing the implicature in the literature filmic conversations.

Bibliography

[1]Grice.H.P.Logic and conversation[M].New York：Academic Press，1975.

[2]Leech.Principles and Pragmatics[M].London：Longman，1983.

[3]Sperber D and Wilson D.Relevance：Communication and Cognition[M].Beijing：Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press，2001.

作者簡(jiǎn)介

覃麗嬌（1990—），女，壯族，廣西壯族自治區(qū)南寧市上林縣人，陜西師范大學(xué)碩士研究生，研究方向：理論語(yǔ)言學(xué)。