Date of Award

1-1-2001

Thesis Type

Masters

Document Type

Thesis

Divisions

Faculty of Languages and Linguistics

Department

-

Institution

Universiti Malaya

Abstract

This study focuses on conversational implicature in the informal spoken discourse of a Malaysian radio chat programme. The study observes that conversation consists of utterances which have literal and non-literal meaning or underlying, intended and implied meaning. The study examines the implied meaning conveyed by the speakers, the inference made by the listeners and the strategies employed. Data is collected by recording sample programmes and the spoken discourse is examined using the Gricean framework, that is, the Cooperative Principle, the four conversational maxims and the violations of the maxims. For each maxim violation, the researcher also identifies and quantifies the strategies that are employed. The findings suggest that the intended meaning of speakers may be inferred based on the context of situation, the shared background knowledge of participants and the assumption that the participants in the conversations are adhering to the Cooperative Principle. The findings indicate that in conveying implied meaning, speakers often flout or overtly violate Grice's conversational maxims and that they employ specific strategies within these violations to successfully convey the implicatures.

Initial

snms

Additional Information

Dissertation (M.A) -- Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, Universiti Malaya, 2001.

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