THE APPLICATION OF PRAGMATICS TO TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH LITERATURE: A STUDY OF THE STORY "THE INVISIBLE JAPANESE GENTLEMEN"

Regarding teaching and learning EFL literature, it is generally considered a tough practice since it requires an extensive knowledge of the English language, context and culture to grasp the content as well as the attitude, message conveyed in works of literature. As an attempt to facilitate the study of EFL literature, this paper aims at discussing an approach that EFL literary works can be analyzed in terms of particular theory of pragmatics such as implicature, the cooperative principle, the four conversational maxims, and speech act. In light of these theories, the conversations in the chosen short story “The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen” were found out to be filled with implied meanings and intentional violation of the cooperative principle, which significantly contributes to the understanding of the characters" personality