The Analysis of Esther from the perspective of Pragmatics.docVIP

The Analysis of Esther from the perspective of Pragmatics 　　【Abstract】There is a eponymous heroine of the biblical book of Esther， who rescued the Jewish nation from the calamity. The author analyses the dialogue between the king and Queen Esther from the perspective of the Pragmatics， in order to get a better understanding of her characterstics. 　　【Key words】Esther； Pragmatics； Cooperative Principle 　　1. Cooperative Principle and Implicature 　　Philosopher， Paul Grice （cited in WenXu， 2006）， proposed that all speakers， regardless of their cultural background， adhere to a basic principle governing conversation which he termed the cooperative principle. That is， people assume that in a conversation the participants will cooperate with each other to make their contributions. Grice， then broke this principle down into four basic maxims which go towards making a speaker’s contribution as is required. 　　（1） Relevance： Make sure that whatever you say is relevant to the conversation at hand. 　　（2） Quality： Do not say what you believe to be false. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. 　　（3） Quantity： Make your contribution sufficiently informative for the current purposes of the conversation. Do not make your contribution more informative than is necessary. 　　（4） Clarity： Do not make your contribution obscure， ambiguous or difficult to understand. 　　According to Grice， conversation implicature refers to a kind of extra meaning that is not literally contained in the utterance. It can arise from either strictly and directly observing or deliberately and openly flouting the maxims， that is to say， speakers can produce implicatures in two ways： observance and non-observance of the maxims. 　　2. The Analysis of dialogue between the king and Esther 　　Then the king asked， “ What is it， Queen Esther？ What is your request？ Even up to half the kingdom， it will be given you.” “If it pleases the king，” replied Esther， “Let the king， together with Haman， com