ABSTRACT

The chapter focuses on work that has been done in the area of Shakespearean pragmatics since the middle of the twentieth century. The notion of speech acts is discussed, and some examples are given from Shakespeare, showing that many speech acts were expounded differently from how they would be expressed now. Greetings and forms of address are considered in particular. Discussion moves on to politeness and impoliteness in Shakespeare. The application of theories of politeness to Shakespeare are discussed, with attention given to the notions of positive and negative face. The differences between thou and you in Shakespeare – much discussed in the literature – are then covered in some detail. Implicature is also considered, with particular reference to how Iago flouts conversational maxims to manipulate Othello. The notion of pragmatic noise is touched on in the final pages.