A Conversation Analysis of Dialogues in Young Sheldon from the Perspective of Politeness Principle

Abstract: The Politeness Principle plays a vital role in daily communication and is a guarantee of successful communication activities. Young Sheldon, an American series premiered in 2017, focuses on the life of Sheldons family, which contains a large number of conversations that against the Politeness Principle. In this paper, I study the conversations in Young Sheldon, count all the dialogues that against the Politeness Principle, and analyze the conversational implicature and effects of pragmatics. Results show that the violation of Approbation Maxim and Tact Maxim has the highest frequency in all dialogues, while the violation of Generosity Maxim the fewest occurrences. The analysis indicates that the dialogues that against the Politeness Principle show the characters selfishness and indifference, and have the discourse effect of reflecting humor and hindering the development of relationship, which helps people understand the characters and the plots better and improve their communication skills.