A general analysis of “Friends” on the level of pragmatical terms

张蓉

（Yu Lin University，Yu Lin  Shanxi   719000）

   摘要：Conversational implicature mainly studies the relationship between the literal meaning and the implied sense and its functions and effects in the application of communication. Politeness theory primarily focuses on the remedy of Gricean cooperative principle in terms of why people’s indirect way of expression can be explained. A very classic American sitcom called “Friends” will be put into the study of these two parts within the domain of pragmatics.

关键词：conversational implicature；politeness theory；indirect way of expression；Friends

中图分类号：G633    文献标识码：A        文章编号

Ⅰ. Introduction

    Pragmatics is a new part in the domain of linguistics and it became one of the members in linguistics world in the late 1970s. Since pragmatics is generally dealing with the meanings of words, dozens of definitions have been given in the light of application and function. Mey (2001) defined pragmatics as the studying the use of language in human communication as determined by the condition of society. Yule (1996: 3) gives a following definition to pragmatics as:

  “Pragmatics is the study of ‘invisible’ meaning, or how we recognize what is

meant even when it is not actually said (or written). In order for that to happen,speakers (and writers) must be able to depend on a lot of shared assumptions and expectations.”

    Thus, from the definitions given above can it be inferred that pragmatics is to ‘read between the lines’ of what is literally said and the intercommunications in certain contexts between speakers and hearers. The reason why pragmatics is popular is that there are countless possibilities of meanings of words which are dependent on the countless reassembling of various words due to the different purposes and settings of speakers. Another reason is that since we have the variability of word meanings, it is feasible to carry out the purpose of communications according to different situations and under certain  circumstances.

Ⅱ.Scripts from “Friends” studied on the level of two notions in Pragmatics

1. Implicatures

    Language is about communication and meanings being conveyed in certain settings, yet, it has two levels: utterance meaning and force. (Thomas, 1995). By saying utterance meaning, it means the literal meaning of words, the meanings that can be found about this word in the dictionary, such as:

Ross: You got a job?

Rachel: Are you kidding? I’m trained for nothing! I was laughed out of twelve interviews today.

Chandler: And you’re surprisingly upbeat. (E101, S1)

    The utterance meaning of Chandler’s words is quite clear to tell that Rachel is still very optimistic unexpectedly, the force of this sentence is actually to be roundabout not to hurt her feelings while telling everybody else that she is really naïve in understanding many things in life. This is actually reading between the lines, which can extract the concept of implicature. As (Grice, 1975 cited by Hearnden. 2007: 7) distinguished implicatures into two sorts: conventional implicatures and conversational implicatures. Conventional implicature refers to meanings of words that are commonly accepted, such as” And you’re surprisingly upbeat”, the word “And” carries this implicature, regardless of context, because the meaning of the word “and” is not of any situational purpose, it means the same anywhere regardless of speakers’ intensions. While, conversational implicature ,resembling ‘reading between lines’, is more realistic and is much more used in daily life, just as what we mentioned above about Chandler’s comment on Rachel’s words. In regard to conversational implicatures, there are four maxims that were summarized as follows:

Quantity:   Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purpose of the exchange).

           Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

Quality:    Do not say what you believe to be false.

           Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

Relevance: Be relevant

Manner:    Avoid obscurity of expression; avoid ambiguity;be brief;be orderly.

(Grice, 1975 cited by Hearnden. 2007: 7)

    These are four cooperative principles that are used as a base, not laws to be obeyed. (Broe and Martin, 2007: 10. cited by Hearnden. 2007: 7). However, Grice, (1975 cited by Hearnden. 2007: 7) indicated that people do not always follow the four maxims and they might flout a maxim which is the way to carry out reading between lines. In the normal procedure of the exchange of ideas, people would also violate a maxim such as to tell lies; they might as well opt out of a maxim such as to show their unwillingness for political or ethical reasons.

2. Politeness theory

    As Yule (1996) divided politeness theory into two parts: direct speech act which means what is said and what is meant is obvious and lucid; while indirect speech act means what is said and what is meant is not seemingly linked. With the example (from Yule, 1996: 55) below can these two be compared:

Move out of the way!

Do you have to stand in front the TV?

You are making a better door than a window.

    The first one is clearly direct, and the second is seemingly direct but actually indirect, and the third one is definitely indirect without even mentioning a word about TV. Actually, the indirect one is more applied by people almost all over the world to show politeness and modesty. Concerned more about the practicability of politeness theory, different culture has different definitions and understanding of being polite and modesty.

 According to Leech (1983), politeness theory consists of six maxims which are:

1. Tact Maxim 2. Generosity Maxim 3.Approbation Maxim 4.Modesty Maxim 5.Agreement Maxim  6.Sympathy Maxim

    What Phoebe flouted is what Leech thought of the most important one of the six maxims, which is the tact maxim (This maxim means to minimize the expressions that may cause cost to other.), but, it is because of her flouting the tact maxim did she realize the effect of humor from the perspectives of the audience.

Ⅲ.Conclusion

    In this study, two main theories were covered: conversational implicatures which are further developed for the purpose of distinguishing what is literally said and the implied meaning covered by the literal meaning with four cooperative principles: quantity, quality, relevance and manner. Second is the politeness theory that has two aspects: indirect speech act and direct speech act, the first one is the mostly used to carry politeness, although different cultures define politeness differently. By the application of these two theories have we analyzed lines from the classic American sitcom” Friends”, and by the analysis, we can come to the conclusion that people, when in a conversation, do not usually stick to these principles in order to realize the implied meaning and develop humor, which serve a lot in daily conversation in diversifying meanings and the possibilities of different purposes of verbal exchange.