AN INVESTIGATION INTO IMPLICATURES IN ROMEO AND JULIET BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Abstract

This study investigates conversational implicatures in the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare by identifying and analyzing utterances from conversations made by characters in the play. The study was done within the scope of discourse analysis and pragmatics. Conversational implicature (CI) was found out in the utterances in conversations made by characters in the play. Then it was identified and analyzed to find out the types of CI, the frequency of CI and effect of CI. Grice’s theory of CI is used as the basic of analysis of the study. The utterances containing implicatures fall into two categories: generalized and particularized CI.