Devil Wears Prada

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In this paper, I will try to explore the aspects of indirectness in conversational discourse from an excerpt from the movie, ‘The Devil Wears Prada.’ I intend on using Grice’s theory of conversational implicature and Deborah Tannen’s theory of conversational style of message and metamessage to explain the usage of indirectness and the reasons to why it is being used in such a context. The plot summary for the excerpt that I have chosen for this particular assignment is between Andrea Sachs and Christian Thompson. Andrea also known as Andy who is the secretary to Miranda Priestly. Miranda Priestly is the magazine editor for the magazine New York Fashion called ‘Runway’ and Christian Thompson, is an influential writer in the fashion industry. Andrea is just leaving Miranda Priestly’s big annual dinner party in which only New Yorks elite crowd is invited when she bumps into Christian, who is walking up the steps to the party. Christian is a smooth talking man, who is good looking and charming. Andrea too is pretty, sweet and charming girl. In the excerpt, you can find that Christian is flirting with Andy in spite of him knowing that she has a boyfriend. Andy is in a hurry to leave to get back to her boyfriend but is being lured by Christian into staying longer and having her meet with his magazine editor as the writing pieces that she sent to Christian are of potential. According to Grice (1975), conversational implicature plays a vital role in our personal interactions. In conversation, we usually tend to understand can foresee what other people are saying even when people do not communicate their preferred intentions straightforwardly. Grice gives a theory which portrays how we are able to interpret and break down what others are saying by using the ‘universal conventions in human interaction which are called cooperative principles.’ (Tsuda, 1) The

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