本文旨在探討莎士比亞悲劇《李爾王》中的語言使用和修辭策略，以為理解整齣戲的手段。本文認定該劇第一幕是整齣戲的濃縮版，預示著整個劇情的發展。仔細閱讀第一幕，乃為掌握全劇精髓之要。首先，莎士比亞在語用上改變或保留了劇中人物的貴族頭銜和名字，這就是一個值得討論的問題。他的分配和重新分配台詞給不同的角色，還有他加用了葛羅斯特侯爵家庭悲劇的副情節等都是語用習慣該關注的指標。整齣悲劇的關鍵事件－愛父測試－其出場編排的方式，使得人物間在對話中所使用的語言大部分都沒有施行的可能，純粹只是嘴上說說而已。因此，語用學上的合作原則－進行有意義對話的重要手段－根據H. P.格萊斯（1975）的說法，被破壞了；而傑弗瑞‧利奇（1983）的禮貌原則也被輕忽了。也就是說，某些語言的實用原則，如格萊斯的四個準則：數量（訊息量）、質量（真實性）、關係（相關性），以及方式（清晰度）和Leech所提有關禮貌交談的原則－他用來解釋觀察到的語言行為－大部分被終結了。因此，愛父測試遊戲是相互信任和相互依存總崩潰的預兆；所說話語和所了解意義之間的聯繫，在大多數情況下，也不復存在。因此，有效的溝通成為不可能。他們的語言行為失敗，悲劇隨之而發生：國王和公主的敵意頓生、父親和女兒的關係疏離、年邁的父親遭遺棄，最終父女皆亡。

This paper aims to explore Shakespeare's language use and rhetorical strategies in King Lear as a way to understand his tragic art. It is assumed in this paper that Act 1 is the encapsulated version of the whole play foreshadowing Shakespeare's tragic orchestration and the development of the entire play. A close reading of Act 1 is therefore necessary to grasp the essence of the whole play. To begin with, Shakespeare's pragmatic change or retention of the prerogative titles and names of the characters is an issue worth discussing. His assignment and re-assignment of the lines to different characters and his adoption of the added Gloucester plot are also pointers of his pragmatic concern and tragic art. The pivotal event of the tragedy, the love test, is so arranged that all languages used in the dialogue between characters are devoid of performative functions and become thus mostly rhetorical. The Cooperative Principle of language so important to carry on a meaningful conversation, according to H. P. Grice (1975), is violated and the Politeness Principle of Geoffrey Leech (1983) is also flouted. That is, some of the pragmatic principles of the everyday language-Grice's Maxims of Quantity (informativeness), Quality (truthfulness), Relation (relevance), and Manner (clarity) and the Leechean rule of polite conversation, his postulated maxims to explain observed language behavior-are radically aborted. As a result, the love test game is a harbinger of the total collapse of mutual trust and interdependence; the link between utterances and what is understood from them is, for the most part, lost. An effective communication is thus impossible. Tragedy ensues as a matter of their failed language performance: the enmity between king and princess, the estrangement of father and daughter, the desertion of the elderly father, and eventually the death of father and daughters.