Analysis of the Application of Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle in the Movie The Lord of the Rings

Abstract

The movie The Lord of the Rings took the world by storm upon its release, winning 351 international awards and 284 nominations, including 17 Academy Award nominations. It is adapted from the epic fantasy novel, written by Professor Tolkien, which has caused a sensation in UK and even across the globe since its publication in 1954. And Tolkien was then known as “the originator of fantasy literature” and “the father of fantasy literature”. As is thought by some critics, without The Lord of the Rings, a modern literary type of fantasy genre would not be produced. The characters in the successful works have different speaking styles whose conversations largely promote the development of plots. Thus, for the purpose of understanding its plots more precisely, it is necessary to find out the Conversational Implicatures, the real meaning conveyed by the speaker, and explore the real meaning expressed by the speakers. Here, the Cooperative Principle and the Politeness Principle in pragmatics will be helpful. Therefore, this paper analyses some selected conversations in The Lord and the Rings which violate the Cooperative Principle and the Politeness Principle in pragmatics. It aims to find out the generation of the Conversational Implicature or the effects of these conversations in characterization and plot arrangement. Meanwhile, it may also be enlightening for analyzing daily conversations in various occasions of real life.