Character revelation and dialogue interpretation through politeness theory and conversation analysis in dramatic discourse: the case of woody allen’s death knocks

This article intends to demonstrate how Politeness Theory and Conversation Analysis can be applied to discover the personality traits of characters in dramatic discourse and hence interpret the theme of plays. To this end, Nat, the character in Death Knocks by Woody Allen, has been put in the spotlight. The application of Politeness Theory to this play revealed that how reversing social power roles of characters can create irony which in turn can lead us to the theme of the play. Adjacency pairs, topic shifts and topics of the conversation also revealed important information about the character and the theme of the play.

Discourse analysis ,

Dramatic discourse ,

Politeness theory ,

Characterization ,

Theme ,

Conversation analysis ,

Irony ,