COMMUNICATION NOISE IN CASE OF FLOUTING THE PRINCIPLES OF COOPERATION AND POLITENESS (ON THE BASE OF ‟PYGMALION” BY BERNARD SHAW)

Abstract

The article reveals the pragmatic potential of communication noise that occurs as a result of interlocutors violating the principles of Cooperation and Politeness in communication. The research is conducted based on the communication of the characters in the play "Pygmalion" by Bernard Shaw, which is full of ideological contradictions and conflicts. Therefore, it suggests a high level of communication noise in their interaction. The analysis of the dialogues and polylogues in the play has proved that communication noise is closely related to the Cooperative principle (Grice’s Maxims) and the Politeness principle in communication and arises in case of their violation and flouting. The violation of the principles of Cooperation and Politeness can happen either unintentionally or on purpose. Unintentional causes include the lack of communicative competence in a speaker, mental peculiarities of interlocutors, the influence of extralingual elements etc. In some cases, both intentional and unintentional factors are present within a single communicative act. The results of the study show that the flouting, or purposeful violation, of the principles of Cooperation and Politeness leads to the occurrence of communication noise, which has a certain pragmatic potential. E.g., it allows a speaker to avoid answering an inconvenient question, draws listener’s attention to the discussed topic, makes communicative partners be more active in interactions, leads them to a certain conclusion desired by the speaker, enables the causing of offense and avoiding accusation of that, or tackling a communicative opponent. Violation of several maxims of the Cooperation and Politeness principles in one communicative act causes a high level of communication noise and accumulates semantic and pragmatic elements of communication by connecting the speakers' intentions and factual information. On the base of the character’s communication in the play we prove that the maxims of Politeness may sometimes contradict the maxims of Cooperation, which forces the speaker to adhere to one at the expense of violating the other. That inevitably creates communication noise in interaction. Non-observance of the Cooperative and Politeness principles raises communication noise that regulates the relationship between interlocutors – brings them closer together or leads to their confrontation. Due to that outlining the sides of the conflict in communication is more vivid. The conducted research rethinks the concept of communication noise as an exclusively negative factor in communication and reveals its specific role in modulating the relationships between interlocutors as well as in the semantic and pragmatic progression of the communicative act.