scholarly journals Literary Pragmatics

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fareed Hameed Al-Hindawi ◽  
Mariam D. Saffah
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Relevance Theory ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Conversational Implicature ◽  
Politeness Theory ◽  
Strong Assumption ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Literary Pragmatics

The present study aims at presenting a thorough account of the field termed literary pragmatics which emerges in a consequence of applying the different pragmatic approaches to the study and analysis of literary genera. Additionally, it also attempts to explore and shed some light on the relationship between the two domains: pragmatics and literature in order to reveal their commonalities. There exists a strong assumption that these have something in common as they both have to do with language users and how meaning is conveyed. Despite the fact the various pragmatic approaches including speech act theory, conversational implicature, politeness theory and relevance theory are developed mainly in relation to spoken interactions, the study has revealed that they offer invaluable insights to the study of literary texts. Moreover, the process of analyzing literary texts has led to the development and the explanation of the pragmatic approaches themselves.

scholarly journals Multifunctionality of the Pragmatic Marker ‘?amaanah’ in Yemeni Spoken Arabic

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (13) ◽  
pp. 332-348
Author(s):  
د. حميد يحيى أحمد الزبيري د. حميد يحيى أحمد الزبيري
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Relevance Theory ◽  
Theory Model ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Politeness Theory ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Multiple Functions ◽  
Recorded Data ◽  
Spoken Arabic

the present study aims at exploring and describing the multiple functions of the PM ‘?amaanah’ in the corpus of Yemeni spoken Arabic. A total of 174 audio-recorded data of natural conversations were analyzed as spoken corpus of Yemeni Arabic. The study is based on an eclectic analytical method whose views have been drawn from the theoretical frameworks of the speech act theory, politeness theory, model of functional systemic linguistics (the interpersonal metafunction), and relevance theory. The findings of the study show that the PM ‘?amaanah’ functions as: an expression of oath; a commitment marker to a future action on the part of the speaker and the addressee; a mitigation marker, preceding potentially face-threating speech acts; a signal introducing reprimanding; an attitude marker expressing a speaker’s attitude and emotion; an epistemic marker evaluating the subjectivity of the speaker’s propositional content; an entreaty-marker on directive act; and a displeasure marker on the part of the speaker. The study concluded with a suggestion on conducting a further research exploring the discourse functions of the marker.

scholarly journals The Role of Pragmatics in Literary Analysis: Approaching Literary Meaning from a Linguistic Perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-40
Author(s):  
Kanhaiya Kumar Sinha
Keyword(s):  
Relevance Theory ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Politeness Theory ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Literary Meaning ◽  
Spoken Interaction ◽  
Linguistic Approaches ◽  
The Relationship

The present paper aims to produce a detailed account of the term ‘pragmatics’ and explore, by presenting and reviewing different models, its role in literature as it appears to be evident in different linguistic approaches to the study and analysis of literary genres. It is a fact that various pragmatic approaches such as speech act theory, conversational implicature, politeness theory, and relevance theory are developed mainly in relation to spoken interaction, yet, as some studies suggest, they offer invaluable insights to the study of literary texts. Consequently, the paper also strives to shed some light on the relationship these two terms – literature and pragmatics – enjoy so that their commonalities can be unmasked. It also tries to explore how pragmatics may help find out the ‘context’ and ‘meaning’ of literary discourse.

New Work on Speech Acts

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
New Work ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Recent Advances ◽  
Current Thinking ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Relationship

The essays collected in this book represent recent advances in our understanding of speech acts-actions like asserting, asking, and commanding that speakers perform when producing an utterance. The study of speech acts spans disciplines, and embraces both the theoretical and scientific concerns proper to linguistics and philosophy as well as the normative questions that speech acts raise for our politics, our societies, and our ethical lives generally. It is the goal of this book to reflect the diversity of current thinking on speech acts as well as to bring these conversations together, so that they may better inform one another. Topics explored in this book include the relationship between sentence grammar and speech act potential; the fate of traditional frameworks in speech act theory, such as the content-force distinction and the taxonomy of speech acts; and the ways in which speech act theory can illuminate the dynamics of hostile and harmful speech. The book takes stock of well over a half century of thinking about speech acts, bringing this classicwork in linewith recent developments in semantics and pragmatics, and pointing the way forward to further debate and research.

Politeness theory and Shakespeare's four major tragedies

1989 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Brown ◽  
Albert Gilman
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
King Lear ◽  
Politeness Theory ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
Period 2 ◽  
Colloquial Speech ◽  
Theory Of Literature

ABSTRACTPenelope Brown and Stephen Levinson (1987) have proposed that power (P), distance (D), and the ranked extremity (R) of a face-threatening act are the universal determinants of politeness levels in dyadic discourse. This claim is tested here for Shakespeare's use of Early Modern English in Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello. The tragedies are used because: (1) dramatic texts provide the best information on colloquial speech of the period; (2) the psychological soliloquies in the tragedies provide the access to inner life that is necessary for a proper test of politeness theory; and (3) the tragedies represent the full range of society in a period of high relevance to politeness theory. The four plays are systematically searched for pairs of minimally contrasting dyads where the dimensions of contrast are power (P), distance (D), and intrinsic extremity (R). Whenever such a pair is found, there are two speeches to be scored for politeness and a prediction from theory as to which should be more polite. The results for P and for R are those predicted by theory, but the results for D are not. The two components of D, interactive closeness and affect, are not closely associated in the plays. Affect strongly influences politeness (increased liking increases politeness and decreased liking decreases politeness); interactive closeness has little or no effect on politeness. The uses of politeness for the delineation of character in the tragedies are illustrated. (Politeness theory, speech act theory, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, theory of literature, Shakespeare studies)

scholarly journals Contact excursion: Speech genre vs communicative event

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-40
Author(s):  
Tatiana A. Yanson ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Genre Theory ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Genre Studies ◽  
Structural Classification ◽  
Speech Genre ◽  
The Relationship

The article deals with the problem of the relationship between two linguistic theories: a speech genre theory and a speech act theory. The research is based on the genre of a contact excursion. From the point of view of genre studies a contact excursion is a speech genre and it can be described using the “speech genre questionnaire” proposed by T. V. Shmeleva, which includes the communicative goal of the genre, the concept of the author, the concept of the addressee, the dictum content, the image of the communicative past, the image of the communicative future, and the language embodiment. From the point of view of functional and structural classification, a contact excursion is a complex genre or a hypergenre, consisting of a number of simple genres. Within the framework of the actional or the activity approach, which is based on the speech act theory, a contact excursion can be considered as a communicative event and described using speech strategies and tactics which represent one or more speech actions, which traces to the concept of a speech act. The notion of the communicative style serves as the basis to reconcile and combine both theories.

scholarly journals Politeness and Speech Acts of Malay Kupang

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vera Riyanti Menno
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Politeness Theory ◽  
Linguistic Politeness

The study was aimed at examining the use of polite language (language use) in Kupang Malay speech community. There are two basic theories of this research; speech act and linguistic politeness theory. The politeness theory was combined with speech act theory, because the speech act theory investigates what to choose, while the theory of politeness investigate whether the utterances are polite or not. In speech, the BMK speaker also uses the six the principles of politeness toward the listeners. These principles are tact maxim, generosity maxim, approbation maxim, modesty maxim, agreement maxim, and sympathy maxim

Sprechakttheoretische Überlegungen zur Typographie – am Beispiel von Presseüberschriften

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 244-291
Author(s):  
Rita Finkbeiner
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
General Question ◽  
Theoretic Approach ◽  
The Relationship

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.

Actes De Langage, Semi-Actes Et Typologie Des Connecteurs Pragmatiques

1987 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Rubattel
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Complementary Distribution ◽  
Grammatical Categories ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Discourse Units ◽  
The Relationship

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.

scholarly journals A Case Study on Characters in Pride and Prejudice: From Perspectives of Speech Act Theory and Conversational Implicature

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 136
Author(s):  
Xiaoyu Ma
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Pride And Prejudice ◽  
Conversational Implicature ◽  
The Enlightenment

<p>Speech act theory and conversational implicature, as research approaches in discourse analysis (DA), have been applied successfully to investigations in such fields as philosophy, linguistics, psychology and literature criticism. This paper aims to employ a synthesized model of these two theories to make a tentative study of the “literature language” and the characters in the literary work—<em>Pride and Prejudice</em>—to testify whether these research methods contribute to the readers’ understanding and appreciation of this masterpiece. The results of the study show that, to a certain extent, the image of the characters in a particular context in this literary work has been successfully demonstrated in terms of these two approaches in DA and it has been proved that “literature language” can be analyzed by means of DA theories. In addition, the study may contribute to the enlightenment of effective and creative approaches in literature as well as college movie English audio-visual-oral course teaching.</p>

Naming practices and the power of words in China

1997 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan D. Blum
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideology ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Western Analysis ◽  
Power Of Words ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Performative Power ◽  
Naming Practices

ABSTRACTThis article examines use of kinship terms, pronouns, and proper names in China, in an overall framework termed “naming” that demonstrates the performative power of uttering relational terms, especially by the junior in the relationship. It also describes the prototypical routine of introductions, which consist of three participants, in contrast to the more typical conversation in Western analysis which posits two participants. In this three-party exchange, the animator is not the author of the words, but rather the willing and necessary namer of the relationship. Finally, it situates this performative function of naming within a general discussion of language ideology in Chinese society, in which signifiers and their homophones are seen as somehow inseparable from the signifieds. (Naming, speech act theory, ideology, kinship, China)

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