Implicatures in macbeth: A pragmatic study

Verbal creativity in Shakespearean tragedies is usually obvious on account of Shakespeare's play upon words as his tragedies such as Macbeth are wrapped up in numerous layers of meaning. Without investigating the implicit meaning of utterances, it seems unlikely to interpret as well as appreciate Shakespeare's tragedies. This study endeavored to explore the intricate use of implicatures in the utterances of Macbeth by applying Yule's (1996) theory. The major focus of this pragmatic analysis was to critically analyze the formation and the types of implicatures present in the selected work. The second focus of the study was to thrash out the role implicatures had played in meaning-making in the selected drama. To achieve the said objectives, the qualitative content analysis method was deemed to be relevant to thoroughly analyze the selected text. Jacobs et al (2002) state that content analysis provides researchers with an opportunity to analyze speakers' utterances in the light of their respective contexts. As regards the data for the investigation, through quota sampling, such 8 utterances were selected that generate implicature, and the quota of 2 utterances per implicature type was further chosen. The analytical model formulated by Mane (2012) was employed to analyze and discuss utterances having an indirect meaning. Mane's (2012) analytical model for analyzing implicatures includes five components namely introduction, contextual environment, the utterance, implicature analysis, and concluding remarks. Through the very model, the formation of all implicatures as well as their role in meaning-making was discussed systematically. From the pragmatic analysis of Macbeth, it is found that all types of implicatures named generalized conversational implicature, conventional implicature, scalar implicature, and particularized conversational implicature exist in Macbeth but they differ in their role in meaning-making in the play.