A Pragmatic Analysis of Conversational Implicature in Bernard Shaw`s: Arms and the man

This paper aims to investigate the language of Bernard Shaw`s play: Arms and the Man. It examines how the characters make use of implicature to convey their messages. Throughout the play, the characters do not always follow the four Gricean maxims: Quantity, Quality, Manner, and Relation. They sometimes violate the maxims to convey a certain message. The researcher follows a mixed approach (qualitative/quantitative approach) to collect the data. The data are some examples taken from the play and they are particularly chosen because the characters convey their messages implicitly by violating the conversational maxims. The results show that the characters violate all four conversational maxims. However, the frequency of violation differs from one maxim to the other. Moreover, the results show that the characters often violate the conversational maxims to drag the listener`s attention to a particular point in the conversation. To conclude, the characters in the play make use of implicature and violate the maxims to convey their messages.