22. LOUISE: No, no dependants. My mother died.
For the first time Louise answers a question straightforwardly and cooperatively.
The fact that her conversational behaviour has changed in this turn is
an internal deviation (and so foregrounded) and can be interpreted at
the author-audience/reader level as indicating that either this topic
is not threatening to her or she is feeling a bit more at ease in general
terms.
23. WIN: So why are you making a change?
Win now re-asks the question she has been asking from turn 1 onwards,
but in a much more explicit manner.
24. LOUISE: Other people make changes.
Louise's response clearly breaks the maxim of relation. There is still
an issue about whether the break is a flout or a violation at the character-character
level. At the upper discoursal level Caryl Churchill is implicating to
her audience that Louise has reverted to the socially uncooperative conversational
behaviour we have seen before, and which clearly cannot serve her best
interests.
25. WIN: But why are you, now, after spending most of
your life in one place?
In the last turn of the extract Win re-asks her previous question in
more exact terms, echoing what we saw in the discussion of Louise's age
in turns 5-8. This flout of the quantity maxim implicates her determination
to get top the bottom of whatever the problem is.
Immediately after this turn, where Win is extra-explicit and extra-precise,
the conversational dam breaks and in a series of long turns Louise tells
Win that she has worked long, hard and effectively in her job but has
seen a series of rather untalented young men promoted over her. It is
this extreme dissatisfaction with her work situation that has led a very
loyal employee to want to move.
Note how much less effective this information would have been if Louise
had answered Win's initial questions straightforwardly at the beginning
of the conversation. Coming after the defensive and uneasy behaviour we
have seen, Louise's explanation is bound to feel more foregrounded and
more emotional, investing the scene with considerably more drama than
if the answers to Win's questions had been given without demur. Louise'sconversational
behaviour has indicated how upset and angry she is about how she has been
mistreated in her job, in ways that appear to be sexist, as well as unfair.
