Date of Award
12-1-2013
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Applied Linguistics
First Advisor
Halliday, Laura
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine the language of literary texts based on the pragmatic theories; Cooperative Principle and Grice's maxims. The researcher collected data from a science fiction novel, The Giver by Los Lowry. The findings reveal that most of the time, Lowry made the characters disobey Grice's maxims and the Cooperative Principle. Observance of the maxims was less than failure to observe the maxims. Lowry had her characters fail to observe the maxims for specific purposes such as generating new implicatures, hiding the truth for a period, or persuading and convincing the readers about a message Lowry wanted to convey.
Access
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