Conversational Implicature in Political Discourse

Abstract

This bachelor thesis deals with conversational implicature (CI) in political discourse, and is divided into the theoretical and practical parts. The theoretical part of the thesis consists of two main chapters. The first one is focused on various aspects of CI. Firstly, CI is put into the context of pragmatics, and the development of CI by H. P. Grice is described. Subsequently, notions of the cooperative principle, conception of CI - realized by the non-observance of the cooperative principle, and problems with Grice´s theory are explained. The second chapter of the theoretical part deals with political discourse. The term political discourse is defined and its specific features, as well as the concept of face, and conversational interference are outlined. The practical part of the thesis illustrates how the theory of CI can be used in practice by analysing two samples of political discourse (an interview and extract of campaigning) from the point of view of the non-observance of maxims. The aim of the analysis is to show the theory of particularized conversational implicature as a useful tool for reasoning of concrete manoeuvres in political discourse and their understanding, and to show the way in which public listeners can distil information that goes beyond an utterance.