This article offers an analysis of the dialogue in Julian Barnes’s Arthur & George, drawing on relevance theory (Grice, 1989; Sperber and Wilson, 1995) and politeness theory (Brown and Levinson, 1987; Fraser, 1990; Lakoff, 1973; Leech, 1983; Spencer-Oatey, 2002). The analysis demonstrates how Arthur’s and George’s particular ability to use language shapes their social situations. George’s inability to make sense of implicature and recover interpersonal messages leads to social disaster; whereas, Arthur’s heightened sensitivity to language’s creative possibilities leads to exceptional social success. The analysis has the secondary effect of revealing the intimate and indivisible relationship among natural language ability, language use, and social identity.
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