Shakespeare's Language : Styles and meanings in King Lear relating to power

Sammanfattning: This is a linguistic study that will apply theories as a way of understanding the contexts of aspects of the play King Lear by William Shakespeare, as they relate to the possession, and exercise of power. It focuses on targeting and exploring the language of the play and how it impacts characters’ behaviour to gain or sustain power. To do this, specific theoretical frameworks have been applied, including semantics and pragmatics in the analysis of a passage. Examples from the opening scene of King Lear are displayed in order to answer three research questions. Among the findings are differences in the selection of nouns and pronouns with references to authority such as when females tend to overuse “I”, “love” and “lord” when conversing. This research discovered that semantic approaches therefore can be used to explain how Shakespeare portrays, for example, gender differences between the characters by his selection of words, metaphors, and metonymic expressions. Since Lear does not speak in the same manner as his later self as he would have done when at the heights of his power, his linguistic shift mirrors his shift in status following abdication. The analysis also draws certain conclusions with regard to implicatures that are derived from the use of vagueness and ambiguity as outlined in the field of pragmatics, including Speech Act Theory, Deixis and Grice´s Cooperative Principle. However, this essay argues that Grice´s Theory of Implicature and his Maxims can be insightful when analysing Shakespearean dramas, especially floutings and violations of the Maxim of Manner. By applying approaches from the fields of semantics and pragmatics this study concludes that the findings relate to Shakespearean works in general and other works from that period and genre.