The Significance of Impoliteness Strategies in Harold Pinter’s “The Caretaker” : A Pragmatic Study

Abstract

In our daily communication there are a lot of impolite utterances used. For example ,when someone speaks in a disrespectful manner, it does not mean to make an opposite effect. Some people speak casually with their friends, even a few times using harsh or tricky language, and appear comfortable with the conversation. It discusses that impoliteness is no longer a taboo in accordance with the meaning of the word, but it becomes a habit in everyday communication. The present study is a pragmatic study that concentrates on one of the key notions in the field of pragmatics which is impoliteness .It deals with Harold Pinter’s “The Caretaker”(1960)as subject of analysis. The study aims at investigating impoliteness strategies by adopting Culpeper’s impoliteness theory. It identifies impoliteness strategies with literary discourse of character .Also, it explains that pragmatic tool such as the impoliteness theory can be applied to literary discourse to explain different dynamics in the conversation of dramatic characters in the literary text .This study involves two parts: a theoretical background and a practical part. The theoretical background consists of a number of sections illustrating the concept of impoliteness and the Theatre of the Absurd. The practical part involves the analysis of impoliteness found in Harold Pinter’s “The Caretaker” and a discussion of the data analysis.