A Conversational Implicature Analysis in Oscar Wilde's Short Story “Happy Prince”

The title of this paper is a conversational implicature analysis on Oscar Wilde's “Happy Prince”. In this paper, the writer discusses conversational implicature in one of Oscar Wilde's short stories entitled “Happy Prince”. The objectives of the study are to identify the implicature utterances conveyed by the characters in Oscar Wilde's “Happy Prince” and to describe the implied meaning uttered by the characters in Oscar Wilde's “Happy Prince”. In this study, the writer applies qualitative research method. The objects of this study are ten utterances of conversational implicature in Oscar Wilde's “Happy Prince”. Those conversational implicature are obtained through frequent reading and analysis. This study employed the researcher as the instrument to find adequate and profound data and analyze them. The procedures and steps that have been used in this research are: (1) the provision of data, (2) data classification, (3) and data analysis. In analyzing the data, the writer uses Gricean theory. It is a theory about conversational implicature generated by four maxims. Those are maxim of quantity, maxim of quality, maxim of relation and maxim of manner. Then the last step is (4) the presentation of data analysis. After conducting the research, the writer found ten conversational implicatures in Oscar Wilde's short story “Happy Prince”. In the short story, there are some variation's meanings of the conversational implicature used in the short story which closely related to the conversational implicature; they are cooperative, politeness and ironical principle. In Oscar Wilde's short story “Happy Prince”, there are six maxims of politeness principle, two maxims of cooperative principles and two maxims of ironical principles. Besides that, the reasons of the conversational implicature used in Oscar Wilde's short story “Happy Prince” are to make us easyly understand the dialogue in the short story conversations and it is aimed at minimizing misunderstanding among the readers and literary critics.


Introduction
Language plays important and significant roles in human communication.
They use it by the aim creating common understanding between the speaker and the hearer. To know what the speaker means, the hearer should interpret ZKDW WKH VSHDNHU ¶V XWWHUDQFH LV 'HDling with this interpretation, based on experience, it is a tricky affair. Sometimes there are possible misunderstandings and sometimes it seems to be the rule rather than the exception (Jacob L. Mey, 1983: 100). According to Leech,  In a case of conversational implicature the hearer crucially makes the assumption that the speaker is not violating one of the conversational maxims, relevance, informativeness, or clarity. This, in fact, has a contradiction in real daily conversation. It makes it possible for the use of implicature to give more elaboration on the lingual phenomenon. According to James R. Hurford, implicature is a concept of utterance meaning as opposed to sentence meaning.
Furthermore, implicature is related to the method by which speakers work out the indirect illocutions of utterance (1983: 278). This kind of case can be easily found conversation taken from literary work of arts like novel or short stories.
Short story is one of the popular genres of fiction which sometimes contains implicature in the conversation among the characters. In this paper, the writer will try to elaborate more about conversational implicature in Oscar Wilde ¶V VKRUW VWRU\ ³+DSS\ 3ULQFH´ EXW LW ZLOO EH GHVFULEHG DERXW WKH synopsis of this famous classic short story.

Gricean Theories of Conversational Implicature
According to Grice there is a general cooperative principle between speakers and hearers which controls or guides the way they speak (F.R. Palmer, 1981: 173 It is important to recognize these maxims as unstated assumptions we have in conversations. We assume that people are normally going to provide an appropriate amount of information and they are telling the truth, being relevant and trying to be as clear as they can. These rules according which people are expected to behave when communicating with one another are frequently flouted or violated. And that is the factor which conversational implicature results from. It occurs when people do not observe the conversational maxims, it does not matter which one or how many of them.

The Politeness Principle
The other principle of conversational implicature is politeness principles. Irony principle is a second order principle, which builds upon, or exploits, the principle of politeness. it allows the hearer to arrive at the offensive point

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Irony, as a number of other means of expression, is also frequently employed in fictional works like novels and short stories. It provides interestingness in dialogue, it makes explicit and implicit dialogues more sophisticated and it is more laborious for readers.
The use of irony in conversation is intentional. The author of the literary works employs irony with some particular goal; they wish to achieve a particular purpose. Irony can have a function humor and ridicule. It can serve only for entertaining the readers. The speaker or writer may want to be sarcastic, he or she may want to indicate that something is disapproved but does not want to be too direct when criticizing.
In contrast to all the conversational implicature discussed so far, conventional implicature are not based on the cooperative principle or the maxims. They do not have to occur in conversation, and they do not depend on special contexts for their interpretation. The same as lexical presuppositions, conventional implicatures are associated with specific words and result in additional conveyed meanings when those words are used (George Yule, 1996: Conventional implicature is always conveyed, regardless of context. According Levinson, conventional implicature are non-truth-conditional inferences that are not derived from super ordinate pragmatic principles like the maxims, but are simply attached by convention to particular lexical item (1983: 127).

Research Methodology
This research is a qualitative descriptive research. The objects in this study are ten utterances of conversational implicature in Oscar Wilde ¶V VKRUW VWRU\ ³+DSS\ 3ULQFH´ 7KRVH FRQYHUVDWLRQDO LPSOLFDWXUH DUH REWDLQHG WKURXJK frequent reading and analysis.
This study employed the researcher as the instrument to find adequate and profound data and analyze them. The procedures and steps that have been used in this research are: (1) the provision of data, (2) data classification, (3) data analysis in which in the method of analyzing data, the writer uses Gricean theory. It is a theory is about conversational implicature generated by four maxims. Those are maxim of quantity, maxim of quality, maxim of relation and maxim of manner. Then the last stage is (4) the presentation of data analysis.

The synopsis of ³KDSS\ SULQFH´
³+DSS\ 3ULQFH´ VKRUW VWRU\ VWDUWHG ZLWK WKH VFHQH ZKHQ DW RQH FROG QLJKW a little swallow flew over the city where a beautiful statue stood. The VZDOORZ ¶V IULHQGV KDG JRQH DZD\ WR (J\SW six weeks before, but he had not because he was in love with the most beautiful reed. The other swallows had told him that his love was ridiculous because the reed had no money and too many relations, and she was always flirting with the wind.
While he was flying he saw the statue. It was covered by thin leaves of fine gold; for eyes he had two sapphires and a large red ruby glowed on his sword. When the prince whom the statue was made after he died he did not know what tears were -he lived in a palace where sorrow was not allowed.
The court used to call him the Happy Prince, and when he died the Town Councilors decided to build the statue, which was set up so high that he could see everything in the city.
The swallow decided to sleep RQ WKH VWDWXH ¶V IHHW EXW MXVW ZKHQ KH ZDV putting his head under his wings, he felt a drop of water, and then another.
When he looked up he realized that the Happy Prince was crying because he could see the misery and ugliness of his own city. So the Happy Prince asked the swallow to be his messenger. Through a small window the Happy Prince could see a very poor seamstress who was embroidering passion flowers on a satin gown, and he could also see her ill boy. They had no food to eat, so the Happy Prince told the swallow to take out the ruby from his sword and give it to them.
The following night the Happy Prince saw a man in a cold garret trying out to finish a play, but he was too cold to write, so the Happy Prince asked the swallow to take out a sapphire from his eyes and give it to him in order to buy wood. The following day, he saw a match-girl whose matches had fallen in the gutter, whose father would hit her if she did not bring home some money. In order to help her, the Happy Prince asked the swallow to pluck the sapphire from his other eye to give to the girl. As a result of this action he became blind and the swallow had to fly over the city in order to tell him what he had seen.
He saw two children crying of hunger and a lot of poverty, so the Happy Prince decided to take out all the golden leaves so as to give them to the poor children.
At last the swallow realized that he would die because of the cold winter, and he decided to stay with the Happy Prince. The Prince asked the swallow to kiss his lips as he loved him, and once the swallow did so he fell down at the Prince's feet. At that moment a crack sounded inside the statue as the Prince's heart broke.
Early the next morning, the Mayor saw the statue but, as it was not beautiful, he decided it was no longer useful, so he decided to pull it down.
The statue was melted in a furnace and reused. The broken lead heart, however, did not melt, and so it was thrown away on a dust-heap alongside the dead swallow, the Prince's final friend.
However, an angel charged by God to find "the two most precious things in the city" returned with the dead bird and the Prince's broken heart. God approved of the angel's choice, and decreed that both the swallow and the Prince would live happily in His presence forever.
Interestingly in this short story Wilde personifies the statue of Happy

Social condition at Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, excellent sensibilities and national self-confidence.
At the same time, in contrast, it was also a moment when religious morality changed drastically. When Victoria took the throne, the Anglican Church was very powerful in running schools and universities, and with high ranking churchmen holding offices in the House of Lords. The Church's power continued to rule in rural areas throughout the Victorian Era; however that was not the case in industrialized cities. In the cities those against the Church were many and the disagreement or rejection was everywhere. first, people just see that this short story is just one of interesting bedtime stories for children but after a reader reads it many times there is something different. This was aimed not only for children but also a good moral inspiration and teaching for adult. (Samekto, 1974:75).

The Conversational Implicature Analysis
"Who are you?" he said. "I am the Happy Prince." "Why are you weeping then?" asked the swallow; "You have quite drenched me." This conversation is in accordance to the cooperative principle by the maxim of quantity. When the statue of Happy Prince was asked by the swallow He gave an answer which was exactly provides the quantity of expected answer. He did not give an information more that the reply needed by the swallow.
"I am glad that you are going to Egypt at last, little swallow," said the prince, "You have stayed too long here; but you must kiss me on the lips, for I love you." "It is not to Egypt that I am going," said the swallow. "I am going to the house of death. Death is the brother of sleep, is he not?" and he kissed the Happy Prince on the lips, and fell down dead at his feet.
This conversation is in line with the cooperative principle by the maxim of quantity. When the statue of Happy Prince was asked by the swallow He gives an answer which is exactly provides the quantity of expected answer.
Quite similar to above analysis The Happy Prince did not give an information more that needed by the swallow.
"Far away," continued the statue in a low musical voice, "Far away in a little street there is a poor house. One of the windows is open, and through it I can see a woman seated at a table. Her face is thin and worn, and she has coarse, red hands, all pricked by the needle, for she is a seamstress. She is embroidering passion-flowers on a satin gown for the loveliest of the queen's maids-of-honor to wear at the next court-ball. In a bed in the corner of the room her little boy is lying ill. He has a fever, and is asking for oranges. His mother has nothing to give him but river water, so he is crying. This conversation is in line politeness principle by the maxim of sympathy. Intelligently the author telling the reader about the feeling of swallows which did not have a heart to pluck the other rare sapphire from the face of Happy Prince stature. The swallow afraid this will make him blind.
This was done to the little match-girl who will be beaten by her father if she did not bring some money. Happy Prince asked the swallow to pluck the last sapphire in his eye and give the expensive jewelry to her. This was done in order her father will not beat her.
"It is a ridiculous attachment," twittered the other swallows; "She has no money, and far too many relations"; and indeed the river was quite full of reeds. Then, when the autumn came they all flew away.
This conversation is a flout and violation of the politeness principle particularly the maxim of approbation. that he said that just to gain a reputation for having artistic tastes whereas, in fact, he did not have any artistic tastes. This is the smart way of the author to mildly criticize the dumb government official at that moment. It is actually offensive but the writer remarks it indirectly through the characters in the short story by way of implicature.
Early the next morning the mayor was walking in the square below in company with the town councilors. As they passed the column he looked up at the statue: "Dear me! How shabby the happy prince looks!" He said. "How shabby indeed!" cried the town councilors, who always agreed with the mayor; and they went up to look at it. "The ruby has fallen out of his sword, his eyes are gone, and he is golden no longer," said the mayor in fact, "He is little better than a beggar!" "Little better than a beggar," Said the town councilors.
This remark is another example of ironical expression. In this case it can be seen the funny expression of the stupid town councilors which always imitate what the major said. Actually, the town councilors has his own wish and desire but because of his vested interest towards the major he always justifies what the major said to him..This is the intelligent craftsmanship of Wilde in mildly criticizing the fool government official at that moment. It is actually offensive but the writer remarks it indirectly through the characters in the short story by way of implicature. The reasons of the conversational implicature used in Oscar Wilde ¶V short story Happy Prince are to make easy we understand the dialogue or conversation in the short story. Beside that this is aimed at minimizing misunderstanding among the readers and literary critics.