Imagine a foursome sitting on a dinner table which is laid out with delicious afternoon tea items. They are enjoying the splendid weather and carrying on a nice conversation with each other. By all means, this is absolutely not a fitting description of what is happening during the MAD TEA-PARTY, a chapter of 'Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland'. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is the author of both this book and 'Through the Looking-Glass – and what Alice found there', and is better known under the nom de plume Lewis Carroll. From now on, I am going to refer to him by this pseudonym.
There are several points that make this particular tea-party so special. First and foremost, it has to be specified that the group of four gathered around the table are not all human beings. In fact, there is just Alice who fits into this category. The other three are Wonderland creatures: the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse. Having come to this realization, it is easier to understand why the latter are often behaving peculiarly by human standards.
The fact that Lewis Carroll has come up with this fanciful, witty and ingenious chapter shows his great skills in making language an instrument that helps him not only to entertain and amuse, but also to cast doubt on what seems to be irrefutable and to make the reader ponder.
Since, from the first time I read Carroll’s successful novel, it was this particular chapter I liked most, I am very interested in learning more about it. First of all, I want to find out how the time in which Alice in Wonderland was written has influenced the story and its main character, Alice. As this little girl is not the only interesting character in the book, I am going to devote myself to the March Hare and the Mad Hatter afterwards. Not only do I want to take a closer look at their personalities, but I will also scrutinize their language when they are speaking to Alice. For this purpose, I want to refer to two of Paul Watzlawick’s axioms. Last but not least, I am going to find out what is understood by the linguistic phenomenon of implicature and how this is connected with the MAD TEA-PARTY.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. The importance of being tactful – the Victorian Era and its influence on Alice
3. Two queer fish: the March Hare and the Mad Hatter
4. Different perceptions of starting points
5. “All that glisters is not gold”
5.1 One cannot not communicate
5.2 Implicature – the addressee has to decode the message
6. Conclusion
Objectives and Topics
The primary objective of this paper is to conduct a pragmatic analysis of the communication dynamics within the "A Mad Tea-Party" chapter of Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." By applying linguistic theories—specifically Paul Watzlawick’s communication axioms and H.P. Grice’s theory of implicature—the study explores how the peculiar interactions between Alice and the Wonderland creatures challenge standard conversational norms and reflect the complexities of social etiquette and meaning-making.
- The influence of the Victorian Era on Alice’s conversational expectations.
- Character analysis of the Mad Hatter and the March Hare as linguistic outliers.
- Application of Watzlawick’s theory on punctuation and the axiom that "one cannot not communicate."
- Investigation into Grice’s Cooperative Principle and the mechanisms of conversational implicature.
Excerpt from the Book
Different perceptions of starting points
Punctuation is one of Watzlawick’s axioms. Contradictory punctuation of a sequence of events can lead to misunderstanding. The interlocutors think that their person opposite possesses the same information as they do. It can be said that all conflicts based on punctuation have in common that the interlocutors’ assumptions with regard to the cause and effect of the disagreement do not coincide. Consequently, they accuse one another and think of each other as being malicious or insane. (cf. Watzlawick 2007, 92-93)
Does this phenomenon also play a role in the beginning of the MAD TEA-PARTY or do the interlocutors assume the same starting points for each event? Is their conflict thus due to something else?
After showing empirical knowledge in thinking to herself that the Dormouse surely does not mind being used as the cushion of the Mad Hatter and the March Hare as she is asleep, it is said that Alice is indignant about their exclamation No room! No room! (60). She for her part replies that there indeed was much room and sits down. Her downright snotty answer refers to her interlocutors’ shout earlier. Alice takes it personally. She surely feels a little offended and unwelcome. In contrast to Alice’s perception, the Mad Hatter and the March Hare do not see the starting point of their conversation with the little girl there, but they rather felt compelled to say something because of Alice’s behaviour. In their opinion, she had approached their table with the intention of sitting down there. The two Wonderland creatures’ assumption is confirmed when Alice really chooses one of the chairs. One can surmise that they in fact define Alice’s coming closer as the conversation’s starting point, as their remark would have been quite senseless had they supposed that Alice, for instance, simply wanted to ask them the way. Starting out from this idea, it seems that the two creatures consider their discourteous remark as justified.
Summary of Chapters
1. Introduction: This chapter introduces the "A Mad Tea-Party" scene and outlines the paper's goal to apply linguistic theories to the interactions between Alice and the Wonderland creatures.
2. The importance of being tactful – the Victorian Era and its influence on Alice: It discusses how Victorian social manners and etiquette influence the protagonist's conversational style and expectations.
3. Two queer fish: the March Hare and the Mad Hatter: This section explores the linguistic origins and peculiar behaviors of the two main Wonderland creatures in the scene.
4. Different perceptions of starting points: It analyzes how contradictory interpretations of the "start" of an interaction lead to misunderstandings, utilizing Watzlawick’s axioms.
5. “All that glisters is not gold”: This chapter investigates how underlying meanings are conveyed even when they are not explicitly stated.
5.1 One cannot not communicate: An exploration of how non-verbal behavior and silence constitute communication based on Watzlawick’s theories.
5.2 Implicature – the addressee has to decode the message: This section details H.P. Grice’s Cooperative Principle and how listeners infer hidden meanings from elliptical utterances.
6. Conclusion: Summarizes the findings, confirming that Lewis Carroll’s sophisticated language use remains timeless and that linguistic theories are highly effective for decoding complex literary interactions.
Keywords
Alice in Wonderland, A Mad Tea-Party, Lewis Carroll, Pragmatics, Paul Watzlawick, H.P. Grice, Victorian Era, Communication Axioms, Cooperative Principle, Conversational Implicature, Linguistic Analysis, Social Etiquette, Mad Hatter, March Hare, Non-verbal communication.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the fundamental focus of this academic paper?
The paper examines the communication patterns within the "A Mad Tea-Party" chapter of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland through the lens of linguistic pragmatics.
Which specific areas of linguistics are addressed?
The study primarily focuses on pragmatics, incorporating concepts such as communication axioms, the Cooperative Principle, and the concept of conversational implicature.
What is the central research question guiding the analysis?
The research seeks to understand how the characters' peculiar interactions reveal the mechanisms of human communication and how linguistic theories can help interpret "hidden" meanings in literary dialogues.
Which scientific methods are employed?
The author applies established communication theories by Paul Watzlawick and H.P. Grice to analyze selected text excerpts from the original novel.
What does the main body of the work cover?
It covers the influence of Victorian manners on Alice, the characterization of the March Hare and the Mad Hatter, the role of perceived starting points in conflicts, and the decoding of non-explicit messages.
How would you summarize the core keywords?
The work is characterized by terms linking literary analysis to pragmatics, such as "implicature," "Victorian Era," "Watzlawick," and "Cooperative Principle."
How does the author define the "punctuation" of a conversation?
Based on Watzlawick, the author explains it as the subjective interpretation of the cause-and-effect sequence in an interaction, which often leads to conflicts when interlocutors hold different starting points.
How does the "A Mad Tea-Party" exemplify Grice's Cooperative Principle?
The chapter demonstrates the flouting of Gricean maxims, such as the Maxim of Quantity, forcing the addressee to infer additional meanings to make sense of incomplete or strange utterances.
- Citation du texte
- Rolf Reimbold (Auteur), 2011, A pragmatic survey of communication on the basis of selected exchanges of words within "A mad tea-party", Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/191198
