A Pragmatic Analysis Of Vivian In Pretty Woman

This thesis is a detailed analysis of the conversational implicature in Pretty Woman from the perspectives of Cooperative Principle (CP), neo-Gricean Pragmatic Apparatus, Polite Principle as well as Face-saving Theory (FST).This paper tries to study the dialogues of a female character with a pragmatic approach. Vivian, the female character, generates abundant pragmatic meanings by flouting or observing conversational maxims in the process of communication, which depicts the character's vivid personalities.Vivian has special virtues. Vivian is straightforward, as revealed by how speaks out her opinion directly without thinking about the feelings of others. Second, Vivian is self-respecting: she is irritated and hurt when Edward mentions her real identity to his lawyer. Third, Vivian is lovely: when she is threatened, she pretends that she is not afraid by uttering something untrue. Fourth, Vivian is a mixture of common sense and idealism. She knows clearly how bad situation she lives in, but she always dreams to get off streets and find her true love. All her character personalities as mentioned above are inferable from Vivian's conversational behavior in this paper.By exploring the conversational implicature in Pretty Woman with a pragmatic approach, this thesis indicates how the dialogues in the movie play a vital role in building up character's traits.