PRAGMATIC AMBIGUITY AND EMOTIONAL CONFLICT IN ‘HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS’: A SPEECH ACT APPROACH

Abstract

This paper employs a pragmatic approach that incorporates elements of Speech Act Theory, theory of implicature, and politeness strategies to explain the communicative dynamics and expressivity in Hills Like White Elephants written by Ernest Hemingway. In examining the minimalist exchanges between the American man character and Jig the following research unearths the strengths of such elements as indirect speech, tactical politeness and being silent as strong methods of communication of emotional tensions, power structures and psychological levels of abstraction. The language employed by the characters, i.e. the euphemisms, general instructions and avoidance of direct answers lies in this approach to avoid directly addressing an issue which is very much understood to be abortion but never named, e.g. creating a level of practical ambiguity. Gricean implicature helps to show how much information conveyed throughout the story is implied, as well as the strategy of politeness and avoiding narrative shows some emotional aversion and manipulation. This paper has identified that the minimalism used by Hemingway in the great iceberg theory hides the psychological tensions that are in the dialogue. This makes the research valuable by connecting the linguistic theory and literary analysis with each other revealing the interpretive power of pragmatic tools in unlocking emotional subtexts and strategies of communication in literary fiction.