An investigation into implicatures in romeo and juliet by william shakespeare

4.1 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ON IMPLICATURES 274.1.1 Conversational Implicatures and Types of Conversational 4.1.2 Generalized Conversational Implicature and Particularized 4.2.1 The Unde

LÊ THỊ HẰNG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO IMPLICATURES

IN ROMEO AND JULIET

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

M.A THESIS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Danang - 2013

LÊ THỊ HẰNG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO IMPLICATURES

IN ROMEO AND JULIET

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Field Study : THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE Code : 60.22.15

M.A THESIS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Supervisor: ASSOC PROF DR PHAN VĂN HÒA

Danang - 2013

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

Except where reference is made in the thesis, this thesis contains nomaterial published elsewhere or extracted in whole, or in part from a thesis bywhich I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma

No other person’s work has been used without acknowledgement in thethesis

This thesis has not been submitted for award of any degree or diploma

in any other tertiary institution

Danang, April 2013

LÊ THỊ HẰNG

as the basic of analysis of the study The utterances containing implicaturesfall into two categories: generalized and particularized CI

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

4.1 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ON IMPLICATURES 27

4.1.1 Conversational Implicatures and Types of Conversational

4.1.2 Generalized Conversational Implicature and Particularized

4.2.1 The Understanding of Conversational Implicatures 59

4.2.2 The Misunderstanding of Conversational Implicatures 62

LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1 Types of conversational implicatures 28Table 4.2 Number and percentage on conversational

implicatures by each type

29

Table 4.3 Effects of producing conversational implicatures 59

Indeed, in daily communication people sometimes say indirectly, theyeven “beat about the bush” In conversation the speech symbols the speakerutters not only to refer to the subject of his discourse, but also carry with themquite other overtones of meaning In some circumstances, a speaker intends tocommunicate more than what is said, that something must be more than justwhat the words mean In the literature communication, following the work of

Grice (1967), saying is generally contrasted with implying or implicating.

Every utterance is seen as communicating a variety of proposition, some

explicitly, others implicitly Saying is seen as falling on the explicit side In order to discover what is said by an utterance, the hearer must decode the

sense of the sentence uttered, and then disambiguate any ambiguousexpression, and narrow down the interpretation of any over-vagueexpressions, all in the intended way

Grice introduced the term “implicature” to refer to the intendedimplications of an utterance In implicature one says and communicates onething but he or she communicates something else in addition It is an

additional meaning, called conversational implicature To illustrate, the

following is the conversation between Peter and Mary

Peter: Is John a good cook?

Mary: He’s English

Given the notorious reputation of English cooking, the most naturalinterpretation of Mary’s utterance is that she intended to supply theassumption that the English are bad cook, and to conclude that John is a badcook [20, p.18]

Actually, issues related to implicatures in general and conversationalimplicatures in particular have been in the focus of linguistic research fordecades and the original theory of conversational implicatures has beenmodified and extended by Grice New theories have also been developed aspossible solutions to problems arising around these linguistic notions.Although conversational implicatures are one of the central topics insemantics and pragmatics, it seems that we know much more about them intheory than in practice Very little work that has been done looks atconversational implicatures in spoken language and even less work has beendone on their occurrences in plays

Lately, it is observed that Vietnamese learners of English, on makingconversations in the target language, often pay little attention to specificcontext, have improper or even odd reply to native speakers and then fail incommunicating with others Recognizing conversational implicatures exactlyand responding felicitously can be regarded as language learners’ pragmaticcompetence Obviously, understanding conversational implicatures plays a veryimportant role in communication Especially, understanding conversationalimplicatures in plays seems to be a hard work to language learners

Therefore, in this study the writer uses play as her source of data Play isone of the special tools to explore and express human feelings It is an essentialform of behaviour in all cultures; it is also a fundamental human activity Sincethe writer is going to do a research on implicatures where the main data is takenfrom utterances, play can certainly be her good source of data

The play which is chosen by the writer is Romeo and Juliet,the famousShakespearean play, which has been adapted numerous times for stage, film,musical and opera Shakespeare's tragic drama of the “star-crossed” younglovers Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet is best remembered for thefamous balcony scene Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet are teenagerswho fall deeply in love but their families are bitter enemies They seize themoment and marry in secret, they make every effort to conceal their actionsbut these end in tragedy when Romeo, Juliet, Tybalt, Mercutio and Paris alldie The themes running through the play address the issues of theconsequences of immature blind passion, hatred and prejudice [50]

Frankly speaking, when reading Romeo and Juliet, the researcher

noticed that the utterances produced by characters contain a lot ofimplicatures, which may make it difficult to understand the play well even if

it has been translated into Vietnamese Moreover, the language used today is,

in many ways, different to that used in the 16th century Elizabethan era andthis is often reflected in the script used in Shakespearean plays Therefore, it

is not surprising that we have no experience or no understanding of some of

the words contained in the script of Romeo and Juliet That is why the writer was interested in analyzing Romeo and Juliet for her study

Therefore, it is the effectiveness of the use of implicatures that leads me

to this research: “An Investigation into Implicatures in Romeo and Juliet

by William Shakespeare.”

I hope my study will be of practical use to the teaching and learning ofEnglish as a foreign language, to the translating of English into Vietnameseand vice versa, as well as to the comprehension Shakespeare’s works in

general, and Romeo and Juliet in particular.

1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

1.2.1 Aims

The study aims at helping Vietnamese users of English know how moreimplicatures in general and conversational implicatures in particular andmaking them more aware of conversational implicatures as an effective tool

of communication so that they can raise their ability to interpretconversational implicatures

In addition to understanding conversational implicatures, the writer alsowants Vietnamese users of English to be able to use conversationalimplicatures as effective tool in communication Moreover, through thisstudy, the writer wants to know which types of implicature that are produced

more frequently by characters in Shakespeare’s work Romeo and Juliet.

1.2.2 Objectives

The study is targeted at

+ Finding out the types of implicatures, why the implicatures are made +Finding out if producing conversational implicatures can causemisunderstanding, which may breakdown the conversation

+ Identifying types of implicature in conversations in the play

+Describing, classifying, and analyzing implicatures in terms ofsemantics and pragmatics in the play

1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This study is done within the scope of discourse analysis andpragmatics The researcher analyzes the conversations by all characters in the

play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare The reasons why the writer

uses all conversations of all characters in the play are because the utterancesthey produced contain a lot of implicatures and stretch away to the end of theplay In addition, this study limits its scope within conversational implicaturethat falls into two categories: generalized conversational implicature andparticularized implicature Then, the implicatures that can be found in thisstudy are analyzed based on the writer’s interpretation

The researcher uses Grice’s theory of conversational implicature as thebasic of the analysis of the study

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1 What types of implicatures are identified in the conversations made

by the characters in the play Romeo and Juliet?

2 Which type is produced more frequently in the play?

3 What are the effects of producing implicatures in the play?

1.5 SIGNIFICATION OF THE STUDY

The research of conversational implicatures on the aspects ofpragmatics makes an attempt to contribute to the understanding of languagelearners in plays in English The use of conversational implicatures by

characters in the play Romeo and Juliet analyzed in the study may be of great

benefit for Vietnamese learners of English I hope it can be a contribution toimproving language competence that benefits not only students, but alsoteachers and readers of Shakespeare

1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

The research is designed into five chapters as follow:

 Chapter 1 Introduction

This chapter covers the rationale, aims and objectives, scope of thestudy, research questions, the signification of the study, and the preview ofthe organization

 Chapter 2 Review of Literature and Theoretical Background

This chapter reviews the previous studies and the theoretical knowledgerelated to this investigation that provides a foundation for the research to rely on

 Chapter 3 Method and Procedures

In this chapter the researcher deals with research approach, data andsource of data, procedure of data collection, sampling, the method of dataanalysis and validity and reliability This chapter also introduces howconversational implicature is analyzed, how numbers and percentages of data

found in the play Romeo and Juliet are processed Model tables are also

shown in this chapter

 Chapter 4 Findings and Discussion

This chapter is the key of the paper where the analysis and research

findings of the implicature in Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare are shown.

The answers to the research questions will be presented in this chapter

 Chapter 5 Conclusions and Implications

This chapter is the summary of the research questions, the procedureemployed and the result obtained In the end, the implications of the findingsand limitations of the research will be pointed out This is also the suggestionfor further research on the issues to be investigated in the study

Chapter 2

LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

This chapter deals with the review of related theories and relatedstudies This review is very important because it is used as the basis of theanalysis of the study

2.1 REVIEW OF RELATED STUDY

Theories of implicatures have been studied, developed, and contributedmuch by many linguistic researchers “Implicature” is an alternative to

“implication” which has additional meanings in logic and informal language,now frequently used in linguistics as a part of the study of conversationalstructure Implicature is the general term used for two distinct types:conventional implicature and conversational implicature Actually,conventional implicature was born into neglect

The English language philosopher Grice, H P (1975) advanced theterm and a definition but only to set such meanings aside Conversationalimplicature, a type of indirect communication, was first described by Grice

He was more concerned to derive conversational implicatures from thecooperative principle and the maxims of conversation and acknowledged thatconventional implicatures fell outside the bounds of this pragmatic theory.Since it was defined by Grice, the notion of conventional implicatures hasraised a lot of debates among linguists

According to Bach (1999), there are no conventional implicatures, andthe typical examples of conventional implicature triggers noticed by Grice

actually contribute assertions to the central content of the utterance instead.[4]

Cruse (2000) used Grice’s theory as a basic to do his research inimplicatures He takes a closer look at conversational implicatures forexplaining how they arise and be defined [7]

Leech (1983) has proposed an independent pragmatic principle tofunction alongside the co-operative principle, which he calls the politenessprinciple The greater politeness comes across in the form of implicatures.The overall mechanism Leech proposes for the generation of implicatures viathe politeness principle is similar to that proposed by Grice for the operativeprinciple Like the co-operative principle is intended to be universal, that is,not cultural dependent, in its application [14]

Many Vietnamese linguists who laid the foundation of Vietnamesepragmatics have raised a plenty of interesting problems related to

conversational implicatures in their researches This theory was studied and

applied in Vietnamese language by Hoàng Phê (1982,1989), Nguyễn ĐứcDân (1998), Đỗ Thị Kim Kiên (1999, 2005), Nguyễn Thiện Giáp (2008), MaiNgọc Chừ, Vũ Đức Nghiệu and Hoàng Trọng Phiến (1997)

According to Đỗ Thị Kim Liên (1999), implicit meaning is the truemeaning of an utterance and can be inferred from a concrete surface structure

in a concrete context [30, p219]

In Nguyễn Đức Dân’s opinion (1998), conversational implicature isdevided into two groups:

a “Hàm ý ngôn ngữ” (which is independent of context)

b “Hàm ý hội thoại” (which is made in situations of communication)

[25, p.193-194]

Nguyễn Thiện Giáp (2008) says that in conversation, to understandwhat the speaker wants to communicate, the hearer has to know both explicitmeaning drawn from the literal meaning of the words and the structures of theutterance and implicit meaning inferred from what is said [26, p.115]

Cuandy Tukijan (2007) studied conversational implicature found in

Taxi movie, restricted to the utterances spoken by three main characters in the

film In his study, conversational implicature falls into two categories:generalized conversational implicature and particularized conversationalimplicature

Locally, conversational implicature has been also studied in somegraduation papers The similarity of the study of Cuandy Tukijan (2007) andthe study of Võ Thị Thanh Thảo (2011) entitled “A study on conversational

implicatures in Titanic film” is that both of them adopt the theory of

conversational implicature proposed by Grice as a basis of analyzing the data.This is also the similarity of this study However, the difference between twostudies is that Cuandy Tukijan investigated conversational implicatures tofind out the types of implicature and which types of implicature that areproduced more frequently while Võ Thị Thanh Thảo investigatedconversational implicatures to find out the reasons for producing implicaturesand the effects of implicatures Meanwhile, the researcher studies the use ofconversational implicature in a literary work to find out the types ofimplicature, which types of implicature that are produced more frequently,and the effects of implicatures

In her paper, Nguyễn Thị Hồng Nhạn (2007) made an investigation intomeans to signal presupposition and implicatures in English spoken discourse

to identify and analyze the occurrences of presupposed and implicatedinformation from dialogues and monologues in business and academic

context The analysis focused on the lexical, syntactical and pragmatic signals

of presupposition and implicatures

2.2THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.2.1 Definition of Key Terms

To make this study understandable and clear for the readers, the writerpresents definition of key terms related to conversational implicature in the study

* Utterance is any stretch of talk by one person, before and after which

there is a silence on the part of the person It is used by a particular speaker on

a particular occasion of a piece of language, such as a sequence of sentences,

or a single phrase, or even a single word [5, p.15]

* Conversation is a form of interactive, spontaneous communication

between two or more people who are following rules of etiquette It is a socialskill that is not difficult for most individuals Conversations are the ideal form

of communication in some respects, since they allow people with differentviews on a topic to learn from each other [51]

To have a conversation, two or more people must co-operate, thinkabout others’ feelings and experiences, and give each other room to talk.Moreover, conversation is a reciprocal process and a very sophisticatedactivity which involves people agreeing about the topic and an immediate

A conversation is a series of utterances exchanged between two ormore speakers, typically of comparable status, which follows a regular pattern

of turn-taking [13, p.208]

* Implicature is used to account for what a speaker can imply, suggest

or mean as distinct from what the speaker literally says [12] The term

“implicature” is used by Grice (1975) to account for what a speaker can

imply, suggest, or mean, as distinct from what the speaker literally says [6,p.31] The word “implicature” is derived from the verb “to imply”, as is itscognate “implication” “To imply” means “to fold” something into something

else (from the Latin verb plicate “to fold”); hence, that which is implied, is

“folded” and has to be “unfolded” in order to be understood [15, p.99]

For example, the sentence “Mary had a baby and got married” strongly

suggests that Mary had the baby before the wedding, but the sentence would

still be strictly true if Mary had her baby after she got married Further, if we add the qualification "— not necessarily in that order" to the original sentence, then the implicature is cancelled even though the meaning of the

original sentence is not altered

In this study, it is very important to distinguish implicature from

presupposition and entailment A presupposition is something the speaker

assumes to be the case prior to making an utterance Speakers, not sentences,have presuppositions An entailment is something that logically follows fromwhat is asserted in the utterance Sentences, not speakers, have entailments

[22, p.25]

2.2.2 Conversational Analysis

The theory of Conversation Analysis (CA) is issued by Yule (1996), inwhich he describes about CA and preference structure Conversation ismainly about talking The term “Conversation Analysis” is to represent anystudy of people talking together, “oral communication”, or “language use”.The structure of the talk, the basic pattern of “I speak – you speak – I speak –you speak”, will derive from that fundamental kind of interaction peopleacquire first and use most often [22, p.71]

CA analysts, according to Cutting (2002), say that there is a relationbetween acts, and that conversation contains frequently occurring pattern, in

pairs of utterances known as “adjacency pairs” They say that the utterance ofone speaker make a certain response of the next speaker very likely The actsare ordered with a first part and a second part, and categorized as question –answer, offer – accept, blame – deny, and so on, with each first part creating

an expectation of a particular second part This is known as preferencestructure: each first part has a preferred and a dispreferred response The pairsare endless; here are a few examples

A question has the preferred response of an answer

In accordance with Levinson’s opinion, CA has made importantcontributions to the understanding of utterance meaning, by showing how alarge proportion of the situated significance of utterance can be traced to theirsurrounding sequential environments Just as the problems of indirect speechacts can be re-analyzed in CA terms, many of the other central concepts inpragmatics theory may be amenable to CA treatment Grice’s theories ofconversational implicature are, of course, prime targets in this regard [15]

2.2.3 Cooperative Principles

Implicatures are primary examples of more being communicated than is said, but in order for them to be interpreted, some basic cooperative principles must first be assumed to be in operation

As phrased by Paul Grice, who introduced it, it states, "Make yourcontribution such as it is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by theaccepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged."Though phrased as a prescriptive command, the principle is intended as adescription of how people normally behave in conversation

Listeners and speakers must speak cooperatively and mutually acceptone another to be understood in a particular way The cooperative principledescribes how effective communication in conversation is achieved incommon social situations

The cooperative principle can be divided into four maxims, called

the Gricean maxims, describing specific rational principles observed by

people who obey the cooperative principle; these principles enable effectivecommunication Grice proposed four conversational maxims that arise fromthe pragmatics of natural language The Gricean Maxims are a way to explainthe link between utterances and what is understood from them

1 Grice's Maxims: Maxim of Quality: Be Truthful

 Do not say what you believe to be false

 Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence

2 Maxim of Quantity: Quantity of Information

 Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the currentpurposes of the exchange)

 Do not make your contribution more informative than is required

3 Maxim of Relevance: Relevance

 Be relevant

With respect to this maxim, Grice writes, “Though the maxim itself isterse, its formulation conceals a number of problems that exercise me a gooddeal: questions about what different kinds and focuses of relevance there may

be, how these shift in the course of a talk exchange, how to allow for the factthat subjects of conversations are legitimately changed, and so on I find thetreatment of such questions exceedingly difficult, and I hope to revert to them

in later work.” (Grice 1989)

4 Maxim of Manner: Be Clear

 Avoid obscurity of expression

Well, I’m sure he was speaking English.

If the speaker is assumed to be following the cooperative principle, in

spite of flouting the Maxim of Quantity, then the utterance must have an

additional nonliteral meaning, such as: “The content of the speaker’s speechwas confusing.”

The speaker’s desire to fulfill two conflicting maxims results in his orher flouting one maxim to invoke the other For instance, a speaker responds

to the question “Where is John?” with the following utterance:

He’s either in the cafeteria or in his office.

In this case, the Maxim of Quantity and the Maxim of Quality are inconflict A cooperative speaker does not want to be ambiguous but also doesnot want to give false information by giving a specific answer in spite of hisuncertainty By flouting the Maxim of Quantity, the speaker invokes theMaxim of Quality, leading to the implicature that the speaker does not havethe evidence to give a specific location where he believes John is.

The speaker invokes a maxim as a basis for interpreting the utterance

In the following exchange:

- Do you know where I can get some gas?

- There’s a gas station around the corner.

The second speaker invokes the Maxim of Relevance, resulting in the

implicature that “the gas station is open and one can probably get gas there”

2.2.4 Conversational implicatures

There are some circumstances where speakers may not follow the expectations of the cooperative principle In courtrooms and classrooms, witnesses and students are often called upon to tell people things which are already well-known to those people (thereby violating the quantity maxim) Such specialized institutional talk is clearly different from conversation

However, even in conversation, a speaker may “opt out” of the maxim expectations by using expressions like “No comment” or “My lips are sealed” in response to a question An interesting aspect of such expressions is that, although they are typically not “as informative as is required” in the context, they are naturally interpreted as communicating more than is said (i.e the speaker knows the answer) This typical reaction (i.e there must be something “special” here) of

listeners to any apparent violation of the maxims is actually the key to the notion of conversational implicature [22, p.39]

The basic assumption in conversation is that, unless otherwise indicated, the participants are adhering to the cooperative principle and the maxims In example (1), Dexter may appear to be violating the requirements of the quantity maxim.

(1) Charlene: I hope you brought the bread and the cheese.

Dexter: Ah, I brought the bread.

After hearing Dexter’s response in (1), Charlene has to assume that Dexter is cooperating and not totally unaware of the quantity maxim But

he did not mention the cheese If he had brought the cheese, he would say

so, because he would be adhering to the quantity maxim He must intend that she infer that what is not mentioned was not brought In this case, Dexter has conveyed more than he said via a conversational implicature.

The structure of what is said can be represented, with b (= bread) and c (= cheese) as in (2) Using symbol +> for an implicature, the

additional conveyed meaning can be also represented.

(2) Charlene: b & c?

Dexter: b (+> NOT c)

It is important to note that it is speakers who communicate meaning via implicatures and it is listeners who recognize those communicated meanings via inference The inferences selected are those which will preserve the assumption of cooperation.

[22, p.40]

In short, according to Grice, conversational implicature which is analyzed in this research must process the following features:

1 Since, to assume a presence of a conversational implicature, we have to assume that at least the Cooperative Principle is being observed, and since it is possible to opt out of the observation of this principle, it follows that generalized conversational implicature can be canceled in a particular case It may be explicitly canceled,

by the addition of a clause that states or implies that the speaker has opted out, or it may be contextually canceled, if the form of utterance that usually carries it is used in a context that makes it clear that the speaker is opting out

2 Insofar as the calculation that the conversational implicature is present requires, beside contextual and background information, only a knowledge of what has been said (or of the conversational commitment of the utterance), and insofar as the manner of expression plays no role in calculation, it will not be possible to find another way of saying the same thing, which simply lacks the implicature in question, except where some special features of the substituted version is itself relevant to the determination of an implicature (in virtue of one of the maxims of Manner) If we call this feature NON-DETACHABILITY, one may expect a generalized conversational implicature that is carried by a familiar, non-special locution to have a high degree of non-detachability.

3 To speak approximately, since the calculation of the presence of a conversational implicature presupposes an initial knowledge of the conventional force of the expression the utterance of which carries the implicature, a conversational implicatum will be a condition that is not included in the original specification of the expression’s conventional force Though it may not be impossible for what starts

life, so to speak, as a conversational implicature to become conventionalized, to suppose that this is so in given case would require special justification So, initially at least, conversational implicata are not part of the meaning of the expressions to the employment of which they attach.

4 Since the truth of a conversational implicatum is not required by the truth of what is said (what is said may be true – what is implicated may be false), the implicature is not carried by what is said, but only by the saying of what is said, or by “putting it that way”.

5 Since, to calculate a conversational implicature is to calculate what has to be supposed in order to preserve the supposition that the Cooperative Principle is being observed, and since there may be various possible specific explanations, a list of which of may be open, the conversational implicatum in such cases will be disjunction of such specific explanations; and if the list of these is open, the implicatum will have just the kind of indeterminacy that many actual implicata do in fact seem to possess.

[12, p.57-58]

2.2.5 Classification of Conversational Implicature

According to Grice, conversational implicatures are divided into two types: generalized conversational implicatures and particularized conversational implicatures.

a) Generalized conversational implicatures

When no special knowledge is required in the context to calculate the additional conveyed meaning, it is called a generalized conversational

implicature [22, p.41]

(3) a Doobie: Did you invite Bella and Cathy? (b & c)

In the case of example (3) no special background knowledge of the context of utterance is required in order to make the necessary inferences Doobie asks Mary about inviting her friends Bella (= b) and

Cathy (= c) to a party, as in (3a.), and gets the reply in (3b.), just b is mentioned without c, means Mary did not invite c.

One common example in English involves any phrase with an indefinite article of the type “a/an X”, such as “a garden” and “a child”

as in (4) These phrases are typical interpreted according to the generalized conversational implicature that: an X +> not speaker’s X.

(4) I was sitting in a garden one day A child looked over the fence

The implicatures in (4), that the garden and the child mentioned are not speaker’s, are calculated on the principle that if the speaker was capable

of being more specific, then he/she would have said “my garden” and

A number of other generalized conversational implicatures are commonly communicated on the basic of a scale of values and are consequently known as scalar implicatures.

Scalar implicatures

According to Grice (1975), another form of conversational implicature

is also known as a scalar implicature This concerns the conversational uses ofwords like “all” or “some” in conversation

(5) I ate some of the pie.

This sentence implies “I did not eat all of the pie.” While the statement

“I ate some pie” is still true if the entire pie was eaten, the conversationalmeaning of the word “some” and the implicature generated by the statement

is “not all”

The scales in (6) are particularly obvious in terms of expressionquantity, where are listed from the highest to the lowest value

(6) <all, most, many, some, few>

<always, often, sometimes> [22, p.41]

The basis of scalar implicature is that, when any form in a scale isasserted, the negative of all forms higher on the scale is implicated The firstscale in (6) had “all”, “most”, and “many”, higher than “some” Given thedefinition of scalar implicature, it should follow that, in saying “some of thepie”, the speaker also creates other implicatures (for example, +> not most,not many)

If the speaker describes linguistics courses as is (7), then we canidentify some more scalar implicatures

(7) Linguistics courses are sometimes really interesting

By using “sometimes” in (7), the speaker communicates, viaimplicature, the negative of forms higher on the scale of frequency (+> notalways, +> not often)

There are many scalar implicatures produced by the use of expressionsthat we may not immediately consider to be part of any scale For example,the utterance (8a) will be interpreted as implicating “+> not certain” as ahigher value on the scale of “likelihood” and (8b) “+> not must” on a scale of

“obligation” and “+> not frozen” on a scale of “coldness”

(8) a It’s possible that they were delayed.

b This should be stored in a cool place

One noticeable feature of scalar implicatures is that when speakers correctthemselves on some detail, as in (9), they typically cancel one of the scalarimplicatures

(9) I got some of this jewelry in Hong Kong – um actually I think I got

most of it there

In (9), the speaker initially implicates “+> not most” by saying “some”, butthen corrects herself by actually asserting “most” That final assertion is stilllikely to be interpreted, however, with a scalar implicature (+> not all)

b) Particularized conversational implicatures

Particularized conversational implicature is an implicature where some assumed knowledge is required in very specific contexts during a

Most of the time, our conversations take place in very specific contexts in which locally recognized inferences are assumed As an illustration, consider an example where Tom’s response does not appear

on the surface to adhere to relevance (A simply relevant answer would

be “yes” or “no”.)

(10) Rick: Do vegetarians eat hamburgers?

Tom: Do chicken have lips?

In Tom’s response does not provide a “yes” or “no” answer The answer is known, but the nature of Tom’s response also implicates that the answer to the question was “of course not” An additional conveyed meaning in such a case is that, because the answer was so obvious, the question did not need to be asked

A further example, in which the speaker appears to adhere (i.e to

“flout”) the maxim of manner, is presented in (11)

(11) Ann: Where are going with the dog?

Sam: To the V-E-T [22, p.43]

In the local context of these speakers, the dog is known to recognize theword “vet”, and to hate being taken there, so Sam produces a more elaborate,spelled out (i.e less brief) version of his message, implicating that he does notwant the dog know the answer to the question just asked

In (12), Leila has just walked into Mary’s office and noticed all thework on her desk Mary’s response seems to flout the maxim of relevance

(12) Leila: Whoa! Has your boss gone crazy?

Mary: Let’s go get some coffee

In order to preserve the assumption of cooperation, Leila will have toinfer some local reason (for example, the boss may be nearby) why Marymakes an apparently non-relevant remark The implicature here is essentiallythat Mary cannot answer the question in that context

Chapter 3

METHODS AND PROCEDURES

This chapter discusses about the methodology that the researcher used inher study She explains the general procedure in collecting and analyzing the data

3.1 RESEARCH APPROACH

This study is designed to meet the aims and objectives of the studymention in part 1 In order to achieve this purpose, a large number of samples

of conversational implicatures in the play Romeo and Juliet by William

Shakespeare were collected The writer uses descriptive qualitative approach

to analyze the data and to obtain a more holistic picture what goes in aparticular situation or setting, and then describe the finding as to answer herquestions It holds true since in this study the researcher identifies andanalyzes implicatures that occur in a particular setting, namely a play entitled

Romeo and Juliet The numbers and percentages in this study are used to help

the writer interpret the findings

3.2 DATA AND SOURCE OF DATA

The data for the study are collected from the play Romeo and Juliet.

The procedure of data collection will be included identifying theconversations by all of characters in the play that contains conversationalimplicatures

3.3 SAMPLING

The researcher analyzes the whole play in Romeo and Juliet by William

Shakespeare which includes conversations made by characters to find outconversational implicatures in the play The typical features of each type ofconversational implicatures made by characters are actually the keys to theselection of samples:

- The interesting meaning of the conversational implicature requiringspecial prior knowledge.

- The difficulty in interpreting the intended meaning of utterances

3.4 DATA COLLECTION

The data for the study are collected from two plays Romeo and Juliet

by William Shakespeare

The procedure of data collection is included:

+ browsing the Internet to find the script of the play

+ identifying the conversations by characters of the play that containsimplicatures

3.5 DATA ANALYSIS

The research is mainly carried out through a descriptive, qualitative andquantitative analysis After the researcher has transcribed the conversation,she begins the analysis by noting the settings, situations and the context of theconversations She analyzes the utterances of each scene to find out theimplicatures A table is made to help her analyze the data It consists of thefollowing steps:

1 Classifying the types of conversational implicatures produced by the

speakers by using Grice’s theory of implicatures as stated in chapter 2(Model table 1)

2 Categorizing those utterances containing conversational implicatures

into their categories: generalized conversational implicatures andparticularized conversational implicatures

3 Explaining to work out conversational implicatures and compare

which type is produced more frequently in the play

4 Analyzing the data by referring to scripts of the play to compare

which type of conversational implicatures is produced morefrequently in the play, and the effects from implicatures

5 Counting the percentages of implicatures (Model table 2, 3)

6 Categorizing the effect table based on the occurrence of

understanding and misunderstanding conversational implicatures andcounting the percentages (Model table 4)

The writer uses the following model tables as below to help her withanalysis:

Model Table 1: The Analysis and Classification of Conversational

Implicatures

Speaker Utterances Implicature Types of CI Context

GCI PCI

Model table 2: Numbers and Percentages of Conversational Implicatures

No Types of Implicature Number (N) Percentage (%)

Percentage(%)

Number(N)

Percentage(%)1

2

Total

Model Table 4: Effects of Producing Conversational Implicatures

Understanding Misunderstanding Total

(N) (%) (N) (%) (N) (%)

To answer research questions, the researcher counted the frequency ofoccurrence of the conversational implicatures and types of conversationalimplicatures produced by each speaker, compared which type is producedmore frequently in the play, categorized effects of producing conversationalimplicatures To follow, she counted the percentages of each type ofconversational implicatures by using the following formula:

Percentage (%) = x 100%

N = the number of each types of conversational implicature

= the total of conversational implicature

3.6 VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY

Reliability and validity are two most essential and important criteria toguarantee the quality of the data collection procedures Reliability is ameasure of the degree to which the data collection procedure gives consistentdata while validity is the degree to which procedure measures what it issupposed to measure, or can be used successful for the purposes for which it

is intended

In terms of reliability, the data source collected to be investigated is

devised from script of Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare William

Shakespeare never published any of his plays and therefore none of theoriginal manuscripts have survived Eighteen unauthorized versions of hisplays were, however, published during his lifetime in quarto editions byunscrupulous publishers The scripts of the play are, therefore, found on theInternet on many websites to ensure the reliability of the scripts

With respect to validity, the researcher makes sure that the data are

taken from conversations of all characters in Romeo and Juliet by William

Shakespeare Moreover, the theoretical background is always maintained tohave a standard for conversational analysis The data collection procedure isalso consistent with the basic theories

In conclusion, this study has to follow the research design strictly Itconsists of clear and reliable examples, illustrations and analysis along withthe valid basic theoretical background

Chapter 4

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter, the writer reviews findings to answer the research

questions stated in chapter one and discussion on findings During this study

of implicatures, the writer have carefully noted down all occurrences of two

types of conversational implicature made by all characters in Romeo and Juliet After analyzing the data, the writer found that there were a lot of

conversational implicatures made by characters’ utterances in the play.Moreover, the findings reveal that communication can still run smoothlyalthough there are some misunderstandings in conversations withconversational implicatures

4.1 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ON IMPLICATURES

In this section, the writer presents the findings of conversationalimplicatures: the total numbers of the imlplicature and the types ofconversational implicatures, namely the generalized and particularized ones The

table below shows the number of characters in the play Romeo and Juliet:

Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio, Capulet, Lady Capulet, Tybalt, Nurse, Sampson,Gregory, Benvolio, and Friar Laurence The table also shows numbers andpercentages of conversational implicatures made by eleven characters in theplay

Table 4.1: Types of conversational implicatures

No Speaker

Types of conversational implicatures

Number(N)

Percentage(%)

Number(N)

Percentage(%)

40 generalized conversational implicatures (GCIs) and 31 particularizedconversational implicatures (PCIs) Then, Mercutio produced 50 GCIs and 28PCIs, Benvolio with 16 GCIs and 13 PCIs, Capulet with 35 GCIs and 23PCIs, Lady Capulet 13 GCIs and 11 PCIs, Tybalt with 9 GCIs and 8 PCIs,nurse with 33 GCIs and 26 PCIs, Sampson with 6 GCIs and 7 PCIs, Gregorywith 3 GCIs and 6 PCIs, and Friar Laurence with 14 GCIs and 11 PCIs Tosum up, the following table is provided

Table 4.2: Number and percentage on conversational implicatures by each

type

No Types of conversational

implicatures

Number (N)

Percentage (%)

466 implicatures are generalized ones Then, when it comes to the other type,

203 out of the 466 implicatures are found

The findings of this study reveal that both generalized conversationalimplicature and particularized conversational implicature are identified in the

conversations done by 11 characters in the play Romeo and Juliet The fact is

that 43.6% of the implicatures are particularized while generalized ones

occupy 56.4% It can be seen that generalized conversational implicature areproduced more frequently in the play

4.1.1 Conversational Implicatures and Types of Conversational Implicatures

The writer analyzed the data based on the types of conversationalimplicatures Firstly, the writer analyzed generalized conversationalimplicature and then followed by particularized conversational implicature Inaddition, the writer put forth utterances that contain both generalized andparticularized conversational implicature

a) Generalized Conversational Implicature

From the study that has been done by the researcher, she finds out thatgeneralized conversational implicature may take bigger percentage At first,scalar implicatures and indefinite articles of “a/an” contribute 234 numbersand 29 numbers which mean they contribute to the whole 263 generalizedconversational implicatures

After that, from the study, the researcher also recognizes that indefinitearticle of “a/an” could be interpreted according to generalized conversationalimplicature not only from the formula a/an X +> not speaker’ X For example,when we follow the theory, the utterance number (60) “A crutch, a crutch!” isinterpreted +> not my crutch This implicature is absolutely right because thatcrutch does not belong to Lady Capulet (the speaker) It belongs to herhusband Capulet

Next, it is known that “a/an” in English indicates number, namely one.Therefore, it certainly implicates +> only one For example, the utterancenumber (7) made by Sampson “A dog of the house of Montague moves me.”,

“A dog of the house of Montague” certainly implicates +> only one dog of the house of Montague.

Then, the researcher also finds that one single utterance can have twosame types of conversational implicatures, which are generalizedconversational implicatures It is clear to interpret the implicature since thetheory of generalized conversational implicature will tell us that a/an X +>not speaker X Thus, “a/an” in that utterance certainly implicates +> not my

… Then, “a” in the same utterance indicates number, namely one Therefore,

it certainly implicates +> only one … There are 204 utterances that containtwo same types of conversational implicatures They are utterances (10), (28),(60), (61), (84), (145), (146), (148), (150), (164), (165), (172), (173), (176),(177), (208), (227), (236), (240), (248), (257), (263), (265), (270), (283),(285), (286), (287), (293), (495), (526), (539), (601), (641), (695), (726),(906), (1432), (1504), (1513), (2014), (2080)

Finally, the writer finds that there are 46 utterances that could not applythe theory of generalized conversational implicature as proposed by Yule(1996) According to Yule (1996), he puts forth that any phrase with anindefinite article “a/an X”, is typically interpreted according to thegeneralized conversational implicature that: a/an X +> not speaker’s X If weapply this theory, these utterances (60), (526) … will be interpreted as theformula above However, those 46 utterances create another formula that a/an

X +> the speaker’s X For example, when we follow the theory, the utterancenumber (177) “This night I hold an old accustom'd feast,” “an old accustom’dfeast” should be interpreted +> not my old accustom’d feast However, thefinding is that this feast is Capulet’s (the speaker’s) “A” in that utterancedoes not merely function as an indefinite article, but it is as a way ofemphasizing that it is his old accustomed feast, so Count Paris can find it easy

to attend the feast “A” in the other 45 utterances also function as an