A STUDY OF GRICEAN THEORY OF IMPLICATURE AND NONVERBAL IMPLICATURE IN SOMERSET MAUGHAM‘’S MR. KNOW AL

Abstract

Somerset Maugham’s writings in general and short stories in particular did not receive the critical attention they deserve.  His critics found him cynical in his attitude to life.  Therefore, the technical virtuosity of his narration and linguistic skill in writing remain unexplored.  An enquiry into Maugham’s language through an application of Grice’s Maxims and the implicature that emanate from the violation of the Maxims, will help a reader to understand that his language use is only apparently simple.

H.P. Grice’s discussions on Maxims of Conversation and Conversational Implicatures paved way to disseminate communication through language, where a speaker or a writer assumes that the recipient of the message already is aware of it.  Implicature refers to what is suggested in an utterance, even though neither expressed nor strictly implied.  It helps “to clarify the intuitive difference between what is expressed literally in a sentence and what is merely suggested by an utterance of the same string of words.”  This study attempts to use Grice’s Cooperative Principle and the four Maxims of Conversation, together with Nonverbal Communication, to understand the linguistic meaning of words in Maugham’s short story Mr. Know All, when implications are intended.