A Pragmatic Analysis of Conversational Implicatures in Bassem Youssef’s 17 October 2023 Interview with Piers Morgan

الملخص

Summary:

This study examines conversational implicatures in Bassem Youssef’s interview with Piers Morgan on 17 October 2023 from a pragmatic perspective. It aims to identify the implied meanings conveyed in the interaction, examine the observance, flouting, and violation of Grice’s conversational maxims, and explore the pragmatic functions achieved through these strategies. The study adopts a primarily qualitative approach and employs Grice’s (1975) theory of conversational implicature and the Cooperative Principle as its analytical framework, supported by a simple quantitative analysis of the frequency of the conversational maxims. Seven extracts are purposively selected from the interview and analyzed according to the four conversational maxims: Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Manner. The findings indicate that conversational implicatures allow the participants to convey meanings beyond the literal content of their utterances, particularly in expressing criticism, irony, humor, persuasion, and indirect evaluation. The quantitative findings show that the Maxim of Quality is the most frequently observed, followed by the Maxims of Relation and Quantity. The findings also demonstrate that contextual knowledge plays an essential role in interpreting the speakers’ intended meanings. The study concludes that Grice’s framework provides an effective basis for analyzing implied meanings in contemporary televised media discourse.