Pragmatic principles in Shaw’s You Never Can Tell*

© Serman Prayogi (082084040)

* by Geoffrey Leech

Introduction

• In this chapter you will be shown how the concept of foregrounding has a broader application than has been generally appreciated.

• Foregrounding known as significant literary ‘deviation’ against the background of a non-literary norm

• You Never Can Tell is a comedy of manners: almost all its major characters are associated with comic exaggerations of conversational behavior.

1. The Plot of Shaw’s You Never Can Tell

• The main characters on the comedy are:- Valentine- a young dentist- Clandon Family:

- Mrs Clandon- Her Children (Gloria, Dolly, & Phillip)

• Briefly the story starts when Valentine just set up in practice at a seaside resort. There he meets Clandon Family. He falls in love to Mrs Clandon (she’s a widow). Many bizzare things happen then, but finally the story ends happily.

2. Pragmatic Principles and Pragmatic Deviation

• The constituent maxims of Grice’s CP (= Co-operative Principle)- Quantity (informativeness)- Quality (truthfulness)- Relation (relevance)- Manner (clarity)

• The constituent maxims of the PP (= Politeness Principle)

3. (Un)co-operative and (Im)polite Behaviour in The Play

• The Maxim of Quality:

Dentist … Why didn’t you let me give you gas? Young Lady. Because you said it would be five shillings extra. Dentist. [shocked] Oh, don’t say that. It makes me feel as if I

had hurt you for the shake of five shillings. Young Lady. [with cool insolence] well, so you have. (I, 212)2

• The Maxim of Quantity:

THE YOUNG LADY. … Your rooms. Are they expensive?DENTIST. Yes … (I, 212)

THE YOUNG LADY. … I Suppose you havent been here long? DENTIST. Six weeks. Is there anything else youd like to know THE YOUNG LADY. [the hint quite lost on her] Any family?

(ibid)

• The Maxim of Relation:

DOLLY. [suddenly, to keep things going] How old are you Mr Crampton?

GLORIA. [hastily] I am afraid we must be going, Mr Valentine. (I, 231)

• The Maxim of Politeness Principle:

WAITER. Quite sure, sir. She expects you at a quarter to one, sir. [The gentleman, shooted by the waiter’s voice, looks at him with a lazy smile. It is a quite voice, with a gentle melody in it that gives sympathetic interest to his most commonplace remark: and he speaks with the sweetness propriety, neither dropping his aitches nor misplacing them, nor committing any other vulgarism. He looks at his watch as he continues] Not that as yet, sir? 12.43, sir. Only two minutes to wait, sir. Nice morning, sir!GENTLEMAN. Yes: very fresh after London.

WAITER. Yes, sir: so all our visitors say, sir. Very nice family, Mrs Clandon’s sir (II, 238)

4. Quality and Quantity: Rights and Obligations

• Dealing with unpleasant truth is the recurrent problem for the play’s characters.

• Many conflicts between rights and obligations.• The twins assert their right to know (their

father), Mrs. Clandon asserts her right to withhold private knowledge. Mr. Crampton asserts his right to consideration as a (long-lost) parent, and the twins assert their right to choose their own parent.

5.Pragmatic Abnormalities of Character

• What are called as abnormalities in this case are:

- being too offensive- Insulting- Flattering

6. A System of Pragmatic Contrasts

• The summary f the pragmatic deviances of the various characters:

The Twins: overrating CP (Quality, Quantity) and correspondingly undervaluing the PPWilliam: overrating PP (without sacrificing CP)Valentine: overrating Quality (willing to sacrifice PP)Gloria: underrating PP (unwilling to sacrifice CP?)Mrs. Clandon: overrating children’s right to independence, overrating PP, and underrating CP in others’ language.M’Comas: taking offence (negative infringement of PP) and misconstrual of CP.

… Each character, except the irrepressible twins (and to a lesser extent M’Comas) finds that the eccentricity leads to discomfiture: each meets

his or her ‘come-uppance’ before the end of the play.

7. ‘You Never Can Tell’

‘You Never Can Tell’, the title of the play is a catch phrase used by William, the waiter, as a panacea for all future ills.

(31) WAITER. [philosophically] Well, sir, you never can tell. Thats a principle of life with me, sir, if you’ll excuse my having such a thing, sir. [Delicately sinking the philosopher in the waiter for a moment] Perhaps you havent noticed that you hadnt touched that seltzer and Irish, sir, when the party broke up. [He takes …] Yes, sir, you never can tell. There was my son, sir! Who ever thought that he would rise to wear a silk gown, sir? And yet, today, sir, nothing less than fifty guineas. What a lesson sir!(II, 261)

The waiter’s ‘over-politeness’, counteracting the ‘under-politeness’ of other characters.

The play ends with William’s last words of comfort to Vlentine:

VALENTINE. [collapsing on the …]I might as well be a married man already.WAITER. [… with ineffable benignity] cheer up, sir, cheer up. Every man is frightened of marriage when it comes to the point; but it often turns out very comfortable, very enjoyable and happy indeed, sir – form time to time. I never was aster in my own house, sir: my wife was like your young lady … … you never can tell, sir: you never can tell.(IV, 316)