GROUP 4

FEBRIANA 171010600047
NEILA ZUHDIYAH 171010600019
NUR ALIFAH ELJAHARA 171010600026
OVI INDRI YANTI 171010600051
RINA EVITASARI 171010600043
SITI MERLINA 171010600018
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter describe how we get from the words on the page
to judgements concerning characters’ ‘personalities’ by
analysing their conversational behaviour and using the powerful
interpretative apparatus of discourse analysis and pragmatics
to this end.
TOM STOPPARD’S PROFESSIONAL FOUL
Professional Foul is unlike many of Stoppard’s more absurdist
plays in that much of the action is centred on what we could
broadly term a realistic character
INITIAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE
CHARACTER OF ANDERSON
The play’s initial stage directions provide us with some brief but significant
descriptions of Anderson. He is an ‘Oxbridge don’ who gives a ‘somewhat
fas-tidious impression’, a point which is almost immediately confirmed when
he ‘dabs at his mouth with his napkin and puts it down’ (43).
 ANALYSIS
Turn-length
In discourse analysis, participants in conversation are said to take a ‘turn’ when they speak
(see Vimala Herman’s chapter in this volume), and a quantitative analysis of the length of
these turns can provide useful initial clues to a character’s behaviour.
Anderson’s average turn-length is 8.4 words/turn compared with 14.3 words/ turn in scenes
one to six).

Topic-shift and topic-control

the clearest indications of Anderson’s vagueness occur at the level of topic-control. When, in
scene one, McKendrick tries to initiate a new topic by referring to the ‘fictions problem’ (46)
Turn-allocation and turn-taking
Anderson is loquacious on certain topics, but that he also displays reluctance to talk in scene
one. His vagueness is also implicated by the way he does not take up turns allocated to him
enthusiastically, and his infrequent allocation of turns to McKendrick.

Hesitations and incomplete turns

Thus in scene three, when Anderson is faced with the predicament of not wishing to agree to
Hollar’s request to smuggle his politically charged thesis out of Czechoslovakia, but, at the
same time, not wanting to jeopardize their friendship, his linguistic performance is noticeably
flawed. Out of a total of 58 conversational turns, he hesitates 13 times and fails to complete
an utterance on 3 occasions.

Interruptions
Only in his last interruption (56) is Anderson actually rude, and this reflects his priorities.
POLITENESS
In the first scenes of the play Anderson tends to favour positive politeness strategies
(paying attention to the addressee’s positive face). In terms of Leech’s Politeness
Principle, Anderson’s upholding of the approbation maxim (‘maximise praise of others’) is
prominent: in scenes one and two he praises McKendrick’s and Chetwyn’s universities,
and thus, by association, themselves.
THE CO-OPERATIVE PRINCIPLE AND
ANDERSON’S LANGUAGE
Another important point in relation to Anderson’s infringement of the Co-operative Principle
emerges from this argument. He occasionally reveals too much about his conversation
with Hollar and this unwitting cooperation prompts the captain to spring awkward questions
on him unexpectedly. Anderson’s flustered reaction is to implicate his reluctance to co-
operate any further by twice flouting the maxim of relation (‘I believe you implied that I was
free to go’ and ‘I insist on leaving now’ (71)).
CONCLUSION
The analysis has also shown that the levels of formality and politeness used by a character
in conversation with other characters may be a revealing area of study in determining a
character’s sense of his or her own power and confidence in a given conversational
situation. Such analysis provides us with a relatively precise methodology for dealing with
perceivable changes in character.