안똔 체홉 “벚꽃 동산”의 희극성1에 대한 언어학적 고찰

Analysis on Anton Chekhov’s comedy from a linguistic perspective

The paper is devoted to the analysis on Anton Chekhov’s comedy “The Cherry Orchard” from a linguistic perspective. From a semantic point of view, the comic effect is derived from the unexpected opposition of two different concepts, referents or situations, caused by contrastive scripts such as actual vs. non-actual scripts, possible vs. impossible scripts, normal vs. abnormal scripts. From a pragmatic point of view, comic effects can be explained by the flouts of Gricean maxims of conversations, namely, the Maxim of Quality, the Maxim of Quantity, the Maxim of Relation and the Maxim of Manner. Through the analysis on the comic effects of Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” I came to the conclusions as follow. First, Anton Chekhov s early short stories reveal humorous tones though the oppositions of different scripts, whereas the comic effects of his later play “The Cherry Orchard”come not only from the semantic contrast but also from the violation of pragmatic norms, that is, the flout of Gricean maxims of conversation. Second, the flout of each Maxim is closely related to characters’ individualities and personalities. For example, Gaev tends to violate the Maxim of Quantity, while Pishchik and Epikhodov frequently violate the Maxim of Manner and the servant Firs usually flouts the Maxim of Manner and the Maxim of Relation. Third, it is notable that, despite Grice’s claim, the Speaker and the Addressee do not always observe the Cooperative Principle in the real conversations, when the Speaker violates the maxims of conversation. Consequently, a violation of the conversational maxims does not always mean an existence of the Speaker’s intention or the Addressee’s successful interpretation of an intended conversational implicature, either. Fourth, although the flouts of the Maxims are not a necessary and sufficient condition for comic effects, they play an important role in producing humorous tone and comic effects in dialogues. Fifth, the core of “The Cherry Orchard”s humorous atmosphere is based on the accumulated ironies of undesirable conversation patterns caused by violated Maxims of conversation. The characters in the play may not feel this irony, but the readers and the audience can feel it, noticing the frequent ridiculous miscommunications. Thus the different level of humor is revealed in this play, and that is why Anton Chekhov named “The Cherry Orchard” a comedy.