The manipulation of literary language: a pragmaticanalysis of The Cave by José Saramago

La manipulación del lenguaje literario: un análisis pragmático de La caverna de José Saramago

This article pretends to analyze twelve passages of the literary work The Cave by José Saramago, using John Austin’s and John Searle’s pragmatic principles and especially Paul Grice’s principles. This, to evince the multiples insincere acts, silences, and communicative acts reductions caused by The Center’s influence. Thus, it will conclude, from literary and pragmatics aspects, the writer uses language through The Center to manipulate the communicative acts of the characters and to demonstrate the proposals like those of Mary Louise Pratt to analyze the literary work utilizing pragmatics are possible.