scholarly journals Apology Strategies in Qassimi Arabic

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 1535
Author(s):  
Lina I. Alrshoudi

This study aims to discover what types of apology strategies are utilized by Qassimi speakers. To achieve this, the data were collected by observations (n=34) where apology speech acts were produced. All the participants (n= 53) are Qassimi Arabic speakers (a variety of Najdi Arabic spoken in central Saudi Arabia) as their L1. The data were analyzed according to Blum-Kulka’s framework of apology strategies. The findings showed that Qassimi Arabic speakers used a range of apology strategies. Principally, they used a combination of illocutionary force indicating devices (IFIDs) and explanations of the reason for their apology. Besides, a range of alternative apology strategies was also evident; namely, using explicit expressions (only IFIDs), denying/taking responsibility, offering repair, and the promise of forbearance. Moreover, another novel apology strategy was also evident that has not been addressed previously in the literature; namely, where a victim apologies to an interlocutor who has offended them. These strategies differed in their popularity among the participants. The present study makes several noteworthy contributions to the field of pragmatics in general and the speech act of apology in particular.

Author(s):  
Craige Roberts

This essay sketches an approach to speech acts in which mood does not semantically determine illocutionary force. The conventional content of mood determines the semantic type of the clause in which it occurs, and, given the nature of discourse, that type most naturally lends itself to a particular type of speech act, i.e. one of the three basic types of language game moves—making an assertion (declarative), posing a question (interrogative), or proposing to one’s addressee(s) the adoption of a goal (imperative). There is relative consensus about the semantics of two of these, the declarative and interrogative; and this consensus view is entirely compatible with the present proposal about the relationship between the semantics and pragmatics of grammatical mood. Hence, the proposal is illustrated with the more controversial imperative.


Author(s):  
Sarah E. Murray ◽  
William B. Starr

This essay sketches an approach to speech acts in which mood does not semantically determine illocutionary force. The conventional content of mood determines the semantic type of the clause in which it occurs, and, given the nature of discourse, that type most naturally lends itself to serving as a particular type of speech act, that is, to serving as one of the three basic types of language game moves-making an assertion (declarative); posing a question (interrogative); or proposing to one’s addressee(s) the adoption of a goal (imperative). This type of semantics for grammatical mood is illustrated with the imperative.


2020 ◽  
pp. 378-390
Author(s):  
Maryam Shafaghi

The context in which the speech act of modesty takes place has a considerable impact on the formation of meaning as well as the determination of the illocutionary force behind the modesty act. This context might include different speech acts, such as admiration, approval, and praise. Modesty can be either positive or negative. In positive modesty, i.e. sincere modesty, the speaker expresses his true feeling of respect and politeness. Thus, he or she conforms to accepted norms of expressing modesty in a society. In negative modesty, i.e. insincere modesty, the speaker deviates from those norms. To be modest is to be polite; therefore, responses given to the act of modesty include a range of different speech acts. Positive modesty entails the acts of approval, praise, admiration, and a request to end modesty, whereas negative modesty leads to the acts of disapproval, negative judgement, denial, reproach, and a request to end flattery. High modesty is indicative of a polite and modest person, while low modesty is suggestive of an impolite and egoistic person. Excessive and low modesty form an unfriendly and unequal interaction.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-84
Author(s):  
Jörg Meibauer

Abstract The notion of an indirect speech act is at the very heart of cognitive pragmatics, yet, after nearly 50 years of orthodox (Searlean) speech act theory, it remains largely unclear how this notion can be explicated in a proper way. In recent years, two debates about indirect speech acts have stood out. First, a debate about the Searlean idea that indirect speech acts constitute a simultaneous realization of a secondary and a primary act. Second, a debate about the reasons for the use of indirect speech acts, in particular about whether this reason is to be seen in strategic advantages and/or observation of politeness demands. In these debates, the original pragmatic conception of sentence types as indicators of illocutionary force seems to have been getting lost. Here, I go back to the seemingly outdated “literal force hypothesis” (see Levinson 1983: 263–264) and point out how it is still relevant for cognitive pragmatics.


Pragmatics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hang Su ◽  
Naixing Wei

Abstract This paper extends the concept of local grammar to speech act studies, focusing specifically on apologising in English. It aims primarily to demonstrate the usefulness of a local grammar approach to account for speech acts and ultimately to contribute to the on-going development of corpus pragmatics. Apology expressions in a corpus of scripted TV conversations are first automatically extracted and then manually examined in order to make sure that all remaining instances have the illocutionary force of apologising and thus qualify for further analysis. The subsequent local grammar analyses facilitate the establishment of a local grammar of apology, comprising 14 local grammar patterns. The analyses show that it is promising to develop a set of local grammars to account more adequately for speech acts in general. The relationship between local grammars, functional grammars, and general grammars is further discussed, which suggests that local grammars can be an alternative approach to functional-pragmatic studies of language and discourse. Directions for future research are outlined; and implications and applications are briefly discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 244-291
Author(s):  
Rita Finkbeiner

Abstract Using the example of newspaper headlines, this paper develops a speech-act theoretic approach to aspects of meaning that can be communicated through the use of typographic means. After considering, more generally, the relationship between speech act theory and writing, analogies between prosody and typography are discussed and the claim is developed that typographic means, just as prosodic means, may function as illocutionary force indicating devices. Using Gallmann’s (1985) system of graphic means, newspaper headlines are defined, more specifically, as typographic objects indicating the (meta-textual) illocution type of an announcement of the text topic. Finally, the relationship between the grammatically determined illocution of a (sentential) headline and its typographically determined meta-textual illocution is modeled, on the basis of Searle’s (1982b) account of fictional speech acts, as an interplay of „vertical“ and „horizontal“ rules. The paper closes with a discussion of the more general question whether typographic acts are speech acts.


Target ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Bourne

In this article it is suggested that the translation of speech-act report verbs may provide scope for achieving stylistic and pragmatic aims. Analysis of the translation of fictional dialogues from a contemporary English novel reveals considerable diversity in the choice of Spanish verbs used to render ‘said’ in the context of impositive directive speech acts. While the choice of a speech act with similar illocutionary force to “said” may fulfil only stylistic objectives, a pragmatic dimension is introduced by the selection of a speech-act verb with a different force. In the context of impositive directive speech acts such a choice may be viewed as an aspect of “pragmastylistics”, defined in Hickey et al. (1993) as “the area where pragmatic and stylistic considerations converge.”


1987 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Rubattel

This article deals with the syntactic properties of pragmatic connectives and with the relationship between their distributional and argumentative properties. Recent discourse models based on speech act theory assume that pragmatic connectives link sentences (or larger units). However, certain phrasal categories too can function as discourse units, and the set of pragmatic connectives therefore includes not only markers linking sentences provided with an illocutionary force (speech acts), but also phrases lacking an asserted illocutionary force (semi-speech acts). Moreover, many connectives either belong to the two subsets or are in complementary distribution, depending on the syntactic environment. Except for coordination, all these connectives are members of only two grammatical categories: Universal subordinators (including complementizers, subordinating conjunctions and prepositions), and modifying adverbs. Coordinate conjunctions are briefly reconsidered, and some arguments are given for restricting this class to et, ou and ni, both on pragmatic and on syntactic grounds.


Author(s):  
Desinta Larasati ◽  
Arjulayana - Arjulayana ◽  
Cut Novita Srikandi

ABSTRACTLearning language will also relate to speech act. When a speaker produce an utterance as well as utilize it to perform an action, it means that the speaker practices speech acts. In another hand, speech acts can be defined as an utterance used by speaker to perform an action. Speech acts are divided into three such as locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act. One of them is illocutionary act. The illocutionary act refers to what someone does in saying something. In this act, illocutionary force is the speaker’s intent addressed to hearer. This research is aimed to find the types of illocutionary acts and identifying about how utterances in the Donald Trump’s speeches are able to be included into certain type of illocutionary acts be based on Searle’s theory. This research is designed in descriptive qualitative. The data is collected by documentation. The primary data are taken from two transcripts of Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy speeches. While the secondary data are related theories obtained from literary books and journals. The procedure of analyzing the data starts by finding out the types of illocutionary acts in the Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy speeches by using the illocutionary acts’ classifications proposed by Searle (1969). After that, the researcher also identifies about the different frequency of illocutionary acts appearances and the dominant illoctionary acts appeared in the Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy speeches. The finding shows that the type of illocutionary acts found in the Donald Trump’s speeches were assertive, commissive, expressive, and directive. Eventhough the types of illocutionary acts found in Donald Trump’s speeches were exactly the same, but they were different in the frequency of appearance. Donald Trump produced mostly assertive type of illocutionary acts and also asserting category of illocutionary type in both of the speeches. Moreover, some utterances are included into assertive type of illocutionary acts due to the fact that they have a suitability with the explanation of assertive type of illocutionary acts proposed by Searle.Keywords: Illocutionary Acts, Speech Acts, Presidential Candidacy Speeches.


Author(s):  
Rehan Almegren

This study focuses on comparing the speech acts of native Arabic speakers of Saudi region and English speakers of America, which help depict the impact of the variables involved, namely status, setting, social distance and situation formality. This paper makes a significant contribution for future researchers, as it is of help to researchers in the speech act area specifically in terms of Saudi Arabic and American English. It will be also of help to those learning Arabic or English and those who teach it in these two countries. Thus, the outcome of this research will contribute to depict the differences and the similarities in the use of greeting strategies between two different groups of respondents from diverse linguistic and cultural domains. Data was collected using the discourse completion test (DCT), developed by Cohen, Olshtain & Rosenstien (1985). Fifty female respondents within the age group of 20-25 years were selected from each group to participate in research procedures. Although the inclusion of male respondents would have made the process complex, it would have provided with comparatively more accurate outcomes if managed properly. The findings showed that linguistic and cultural differences, variables of social distance, social status, settings and situation formality greatly influenced the decision-making of Saudi Native Speakers of Arabic and American Native Speakers of English, pertaining to their usage of greeting strategies as part of their speech acts. For example, differences can be observed between these two speakers in terms of their greeting strategies; American English speakers attach less significance to social and physical distance and hierarchy compared to Saudi Arabic speakers. Similarly, both the groups attach almost equal importance to their initiation words when greeting others. These differences and similarities help determine social status and the relationship between speakers. 


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