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Article published In: Journal of Historical Pragmatics
Vol. 25:1 (2024) ► pp.1–32

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The pragmatics of royal discourse in William Shakespeare’s Henry vi

ORCiD logo with link | Adam Mickiewicz University
Published online: 20 October 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.19012.kiz
Abstract
Politeness (Brown, Roger and Albert Gilman. 1989. “Politeness Theory and Shakespeare’s Four Major Tragedies”. Language in Society 18 (2): 159–213. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Rudanko, Juhani. 1993. Pragmatic Approaches to Shakespeare: Essays on Othello, Coriolanus and Timon of Athens. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Kopytko, Roman. 1995. “Linguistic Politeness Strategies in Shakespeare’s Plays”. In Andreas H. Jucker (ed.), Historical Pragmatics: Developments in the History of English, 515–541. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) and impoliteness (Culpeper, Jonathan. 1996. “Towards an Anatomy of Impoliteness”. Journal of Pragmatics 25 (3): 349–367. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, . 2001. Language and Characterisation: People in Plays and Other Texts. Harlow, UK: Pearson.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Bousfield, Derek. 2007. “‘Never a Truer Word Said in Jest’: A Pragmastylistic Analysis of Impoliteness as Banter in Henry IV, Part 1”. In Marina Lambrou and Peter Stockwell (eds), Contemporary Stylistics, 209–220. London and New York: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) have a prominent place in the reading of Shakespearean drama and serve as a means of characterisation. In this study, I utilise (im)politeness and face theory to characterise the royal discourse in 1, 2, 3 Henry vi. The study aims to analyse the linguistic behaviour of King Henry vi to see how well his royal discourse reflects his kingship and how his linguistic inadequacy contributes to his political failures. I investigate Henry’s use of (im)politeness and facework to handle political negotiations and I evaluate his level of awareness of the “political face”, which is the king’s desire to preserve a positive public image and to save face in social interactions. I look at the examples of Henry’s inadequate linguistic behaviour and try to establish why this behaviour was inefficient in a given scene and context.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background: (Im)politeness
    • 2.1Pragma-stylistics and literary characterisation
  • 3.King Henry vi or Dignitas non moritur(?)
    • 3.11 Henry vi: Redressive politeness
    • 3.22 Henry vi: Failing to (re)act
    • 3.33 Henry vi: A king with a crown in his heart
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Sources
  • References
References (76)
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