An introduction to the experimental versus the pragmatic paradigm in evaluation

The paper is focused on exploring the factors that support females’ progression in higher education. The mixed methods approach is taken to conduct the research, consequently the study falls in pragmatic paradigm. The structured questionnaire is used to collect quantitative data from 200 university female students, and semi-structured interview protocol is used to generate qualitative data from 15 female students of the same university. Descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage) has been used to analyse quantitative data, whereas content analysis has been used to analyse qualitative data. The data highlight that literate parents, global trend of females’ acquisition of higher education, media, availability of jobs and scholarships are supportive factors in females’ progression in higher education. An interesting finding revealed from the data is that ‘Islamic Perspective’ of education is also considered as encouraging factor; generally in Pakistani societal context, especially in remote areas, people use ‘Islamic Perspective’ in a distorted way to restrict their girls from getting higher education.

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Aggressive Language in Literature: A Pragmatic Approach

Arab World English Journal ◽

10.24093/awej/vol12no4.16 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (4) ◽

pp. 224-242

Author(s):

Hanan Abdul-kareem Kadhim ◽

Wafaa Sahib Mehdi Mohammed

Keyword(s):

Speech Acts ◽

Psychological State ◽

Pragmatic Approach ◽

Harold Pinter ◽

Qualitative And Quantitative ◽

Human Interactions ◽

John Osborne ◽

Quantitative Analyses ◽

Pragmatic Paradigm ◽

Negative Form

Aggression is a negative form of an anti-social behavior. It is produced because of a particular reason, desire, want, need, or due to the psychological state of the aggressor. It injures others physically or psychologically. Aggressive behaviors in human interactions cause discomfort and disharmony among interlocutors. The paper aims to identify how aggressive language manifests itself in the data under scrutiny in terms of the pragmatic paradigm. Two British literary works are the data; namely, Look Back in Anger by John Osborne (1956), and The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter (1957). This paper endeavors to answer the question of how aggressive language is represented in literature pragmatically? It is hoped to be significant to linguistic and psychological studies in that it clarifies how aggression is displayed in human communications linguistically. Qualitative and quantitative analyses are conducted to verify the findings. It ends with some concluding remarks, the most important of which are: insulting, belittling, ridiculing and threatening are prevalent speech acts; simile, hyperbole, metaphor and repetition appear due to Grice’s maxims breaching while the use of taboo words, calling names, or abusive words are the impoliteness strategies that are distinguished in the data.

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Cognitive & Pragmatic Approach to the Phraseological Intensifiers of Political Discourse

Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities ◽

10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.29 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Nadejda Zubareva ◽

◽

Iroda Siddikova

Keyword(s):

Political Discourse ◽

Wide Distribution ◽

Linguistic Meaning ◽

Linguistic Context ◽

Pragmatic Approach ◽

Cognitive Linguistic ◽

Wide Range ◽

Pragmatic Paradigm

The present paper reports on a study that aims to explore the cognitive and pragmatic potential of leveraging phraseological intensifiers in English political discourse. The authors argue that the phraseological intensifiers of political discourse could not be discussed without any contribution to the extra-linguistic context. Therefore, the present study works with a cognitive linguistic explanation of the phraseological intensifiers used by English politicians and journalists as well as performed pragmatic impact that aimed to foster the relevant conceptualization process. The suggestion of phraseological intensifiers depends on context linguistic meaning in the employed by the authors cognitive-pragmatic paradigm. This paper also denotes a wide range of relative to intensity categories, which should be distinguished from it. Such an analysis allows the authors to account for the wide distribution of intensifiers and their co-occurrence with categories that do not encode degree variables. The results of the study show that phraseological intensifiers significantly outperformed in the degree of pragmatic suggestion in political discourse and made use of them in a more appropriate way.

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From subjective perspective to subjective text navigation

Verhnevolzhski Philological Bulletin ◽

10.20323/2499-9679-2021-2-25-64-70 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2 (25) ◽

pp. 64-70

Author(s):

Valentin N. Stepanov ◽

◽

Yuliya N. Varfolomeeva ◽

Keyword(s):

Point Of View ◽

Contextual Analysis ◽

Semantic Type ◽

Material World ◽

Methodological Basis ◽

Personal Meanings ◽

Pragmatic Information ◽

Subjective Perspective ◽

Different Levels ◽

Pragmatic Paradigm

This article considers description as a functional and semantic type of speech from the point of view of the receptive-pragmatic paradigm of research. The authors turn to pragmatic syntax in order to reconstruct the receptive space of the speech subject, their cognitive sphere based on pragmatically (connotatively) «charged» signs and to actualize the implicitly expressed meaning of the statement with their help. The methodological basis of the study is the referential analysis, which helps to reconstruct a set of initial situations (referential space), and contextual analysis, through which the pragmatic information and personal meanings belonging to the cognitive sphere of the speech subject (receptive space) are explicated. Special attention is paid to the triadic opposition «figure – micro-context – referential space» – «background – macro-context – receptive space». The conceptual triad «figure – micro-context – referential space» is related to the material world and its representations in the text, and in this respect belongs to the conceptual field of semantic syntax. On the contrary, the conceptual triad «background – macro-context – receptive space» enables to reconstruct the cognitive sphere of the speech subject and its representation in speech, in particular, the attitude of the speech subject to what they see, feel and think, how their ideas about the original (referent) situation develop, and refer to the material sphere and conceptual field of pragmatic syntax. This triadic opposition helps to consider the subjective navigation of the text as a modification of its subjective perspective. Subjective text navigation represents implicit (not clearly expressed) ways of orientation in the cognitive sphere of the speech subject and is designed to direct the reader's attention, their perception of different levels of explicitly and implicitly expressed meanings through pragmatic localizers of the speech subject's discourse intention.

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