IJAESsince 2000 International Journal of Arabic-English Studies

The Interrogation Scene in Harold Pinter's 'The Birthday Party': A Multi-Faceted Analysis of Pinteresque Dialogue Nashwa Abdelkader Elyamany

Abstract

The emergence of the Theatre of the Absurd is one of the prominent movements that blossomed in the literary world. The play texts of Harold Pinter (1930- 2008), who has gained visibility and successive popularity in such a new era of the dramatic world, unravel a new dimension in this European theatre genre. Pinter's outstanding endeavors and contributions to modern theatre afford a new layer of dramatic discourse, characteristically coined as Pinteresque discourse, in which power games evolve. In the interrogation scene of his first full-length three-act play, The Birthday Party, all the characters are portrayed in constant verbal struggle for survival and domination. In this paper, the researcher reports on a multi-faceted analysis of  three randomly selected excerpts of the scene. The proposed framework for the study, which focuses attention on language in use, is drawn from conversation analysis and a two-fold pragmatic analysis. The conversation analysis, in terms of the dominant systematics of turn-taking prevalent in the scene, yields significant findings in regards to the characterization and the themes continually perpetuated by the play text. The pragmatic analysis sheds light on how flouting the Gricean maxims (Grice 1968; 1975) and manipulating different impoliteness super-strategies (Culpeper 1996; 2002; 2005; 2010) on the part of the characters encompass non-symmetrical relational power amongst them. This, in turn, gives rise to an "identity loss" of those stripped of power, by virtue of unwarranted and excessive verbal assault on their face. The study calls for a multi-faceted analysis of dramatic discourse to account for a full understanding of the wide array of dialogic and stylistic features and dynamics prevalent in dramatic texts.

Authors

Nashwa Abdelkader Elyamany

DOI

Keywords

conversational implicatures, Gricean maxims, identity loss, impoliteness theory, power, social distance

Full Text :

ijaes.net/article/fulltext/view?volume=17&issue=1&id=4

References

  1. Bennison, Neil. (2002). 'Accessing character through conversation'. In Johnathan Culpeper, Mick Short and Peter Verdonk. (eds.), Exploring the Language of Drama: From Text to Context, 67-82. New York: Routledge. Bousfield, Derek. (2008). Impoliteness in Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publication Company.
  2. Brockett, Oscar G. and Franklin J. Hildy. (1991). History of the Theatre. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
  3. Brown, Penolope and Stephen Levinson. (1978). 'Universals in language usage: politeness phenomena'. In Esther N. Goody (ed.), Questions and politeness, 56-311. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  4. Brown, Penolope and Stephen Levinson. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  5. Carter, Ronald and John McRae. (2001). The Routledge History of Literature in English. London and New York: Psychology Press.
  6. Ching, Marvin K. L. (1999). 'Verbal irony against an antagonist'. Metaphor and Symbol, 14 (2):139-147.
  7. Clark, Herbert H. and Richard J. Gerrig. (1984). 'On the pretense theory of irony'. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113 (1):121-126.
  8. Colston, Herbert L. (1997). ''I've never heard anything like it': Overstatement, understatement, and irony'. Metaphor and Symbol, 12 (1):43-58.
  9. Colston, Herbert L. and Jennifer O'Brien. (2000a). 'Contrast and pragmatics in figurative language: Anything understatement can do, irony can do better'. Journal of Pragmatics, 32 (11):1557-1583.
  10. Colston, Herbert L. and Jennifer O'Brien. (2000b). 'Contrast of kind versus contrast of magnitude: The pragmatic accomplishments of irony and hyperbole'. Discourse Processes, 30 (2):179-199.
  11. Coulthard, Malcolm. (1977). An Introduction to Discourse Analysis. Hong Kong: Longman Group.
  12. Culpeper, Johnathan. (1996). 'Towards an anatomy of impoliteness'. Journal of Pragmatics, 25 (3):349-367.
  13. Culpeper, Johnathan. (2002). 'Impoliteness in dramatic dialogue'. In Johnathan Culpeper, Mick Short and Peter Verdonk. (eds.), Exploring the Language of Drama: From Text to Context, 67-82. New York: Routledge. Culpeper, Johnathan. (2005). 'Impoliteness and entertainment in the television quiz show: The Weakest Link'. Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behavior, Culture, 1 (1):35-72.
  14. Culpeper, Johnathan. (2010). 'Conventionalised impoliteness formulae'. Journal of Pragmatics, 42 (12):3232-3245.
  15. Culpeper, Bousfield, and Anne Wichmann. (2003). 'Impoliteness revisited: With special reference to dynamic and prosodic aspects'. Journal of Pragmatics, 35 (10-11):1545-1579.
  16. Cruse, Alan. (2000). Meaning in Language: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  17. Dews, Kaplan and Ellen Winner. (1995). 'Why not say it directly? The social functions of irony'. Discourse Processes, 19 (3):347-367.
  18. Esslin, Martin. (1968). The Theatre of the Absurd. Middlesex: Penguin Books.
  19. Esslin, Martin. (1970). The People Wound. London: Methuen & Co.
  20. Esslin, Martin. (1982). Pinter: the playwright. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  21. Gale, Steven. (1977). Butter's Going up: A Critical Analysis of Harold Pinter's Work. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
  22. Gerrig, Richard J. and Yevgeniya Goldvarg. (2000). 'Additive effects in the perception of sarcasm: Situational disparity and echoic mention'. Metaphor and Symbol, 15 (4):197-208.
  23. Gibbs, Raymond and Christin lzett. (2005). 'Irony as persuasive communication'. In Herbert L. Colston & Albert N. Katz (eds.), Figurative Language Comprehension: Social and Cultural Influences, 131-151. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
  24. Goffman, Erving. (1967). Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. New York: Doubleday Anchor.
  25. Grice, Herbert Paul. (1968). Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
  26. Grice, Herbert Paul. (1975). 'Logic and conversation'. In Peter Cole and Jerry L. Morgan (eds), Studies in Syntax and Semantics III: Speech Acts, 98- 138. New York: Academic Press,
  27. Jaworski, Adam and Nikolas Coupland. (1999). The Discourse reader. London: Routledge.
  28. Jorgensen, Julia. (1996). 'The functions of sarcastic irony in speech'. Journal of Pragmatics, 26 (5):613-634.
  29. Kreuz, Roger T. and Sam Glucksberg. (1989). 'How to be sarcastic: The echoic reminder theory of' verbal irony'. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 118 (4): 374-386.
  30. Kreuz, Long and Church, Mary B. (1991). 'On being ironic: Pragmatic and mnemonic implications'. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 6 (3):149-162.
  31. Kumon-Nakamura, Glucksberg and Mary Brown. (1995). 'How about another piece of pie: The allusional pretense theory of discourse irony'. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 124 (1):3-21.
  32. Lee, Christopher J. and Albert N. Katz. (1998). 'The differential role of ridicule in sarcasm and irony'. Metaphor and Symbol, 13 (1):1-15.
  33. Leech, Geoffery. (1992) 'Pragmatic Principles in Shaw's You Never Can Tell'. In Michael Toolan (ed.), Language, Text and Context: Essays in Stylistics, 259-80. London: Routledge.
  34. Pexman, Penny M. and Kara M. Olineck. (2002). 'Understanding irony: How do stereotypes cue speaker intent?' Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 21 (3):245-274
  35. Pexman, Penny and Meghan T. Zvaigne. (2004). 'Does irony go better with friends?' Metaphor and Symbol, 19 (2):143-163.
  36. Pinter, Harold. (2002). The Birthday l Party and the Room. New York: Grove Press.
  37. Sacks, Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson. (1978). 'A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn Taking in Conversation'. In Jim Schenkein (ed.), Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction, 7-55. New York: Academic Press.
  38. Sabbagh, Mark A. (1999). 'Communicative intentions and language: evidence from right hemisphere damage and autism'. Brain and Language, 70 (1):29-69.
  39. Searle, John R. (1975). 'Indirect speech acts'. In Peter Cole and Jerry L. Morgan (eds.), Speech Acts, 59-82. New York, New York: Academic Press.
  40. Simpson, Paul. (1989) 'Politeness Phenomena in Ionesco's The Lesson'. In Ronald Carter and Paul Simpson (eds.) Language, Discourse and Literature, 170-93. London: Routledge,
  41. Sperber, Dan and Deirdre Wilson (1981). 'Irony and the Use-Mention Distinction'. In Paul Cole (ed.), Radical Pragmatics, 295-318. New York, New York: Academic Press.
  42. Thomas, Jenny (1995). Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics. London: Longman.