Topic 12 - Meaning between the lines (Session B) > Top Girls revisited - with politeness in mind

Top Girls revisited - with politeness in mind

Now that we have looked Politeness Theory in general terms, we will begin to apply it to drama. On this page we are going to re-visit the extract from Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls that we looked at in terms of Gricean conversational implicature in session A. You may find it helpful to revisit the Gricean discussion quickly, so that you are freshly aware of it when thinking about the text in terms of politeness. We won’t analyse every turn as it will take too long. Instead we will look at particularly significant or interesting parts in terms of politeness theory. First of all, though we will look at the way in which our intuitive knowledge of politeness contributes to our understanding of the passage overall.

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