Semantics of Imperative Statements in the Modern Kyrgyz Language

The cognitive features of imperative utterances in the modern Kyrgyz language have been investigated. As you know, the imperative has two different meanings: one means urgency, necessity and importance, and the other - attempts to influence the actions of other people. Imperative means something extremely important or necessary. It also means order. The analyzed imperative statements are considered in the mainstream of conceptual grammar, which allows you to highlight syntactic concepts, or mental images that stand behind linguistic signs and are reflected in the analyzed syntactic structures. The purpose of the article is to identify and describe imperative utterances in the Kyrgyz language, to reveal the mechanisms for changing the prototypical meaning of the verb lexicon in the structure of the imperative using theories such as the theory of functional styles, the theory of discourse, the theory of speech acts and the theory of grammar of constructions. The relevance of the article is due to the need to study the semantic features of the imperative statements of the modern Kyrgyz language. The purpose of this work is to show the features of imperatives, to carefully study the types and functions of imperatives in the Kyrgyz language. The data were analyzed using a comparative analysis to find out the differences and similarities of the imperatives of the Kyrgyz language with other languages. The study belongs to qualitative research, as it was conducted using the method of contrast analysis as a comparison of languages. The object of the research is the data imperatives were taken from the sources that were needed for the research.

Individual differences in indirect speech act processing found outside the language network

Face-to-face communication requires skills that go beyond core language abilities. In dialog, we routinely make inferences beyond the literal meaning of utterances and distinguish between different speech acts based on e.g. contextual cues. It is however not known whether such communicative skills potentially overlap with core language skills or other capacities, such as Theory of Mind (ToM). In this fMRI study we investigate these questions by capitalizing on individual variation in pragmatic skills in the general population. Based on behavioral data from 201 participants, we selected participants with higher vs lower pragmatic skills for the fMRI-study (N = 57). In the scanner, participants listened to dialogs including a direct or an indirect target utterance. The paradigm allowed participants at the whole group level to (passively) distinguish indirect from direct speech acts, as evidenced by a robust activity difference between these speech acts in an extended language network including ToM areas. Individual differences in pragmatic skills modulated activation in two additional regions outside the core language regions (one cluster in the left lateral parietal cortex and intraparietal sulcus and one in the precuneus). The behavioral results indicate segregation of pragmatic skill from core language and ToM. In conclusion, contextualized and multimodal communication requires a set of inter-related pragmatic processes that are neurocognitively segregated: (1) from core language and (2) partly from ToM.

Individual versus pair work on L2 speech acts: production and cognitive processes

This study aims to examine the extent to which peer collaboration affects EFL learners’ speech act production and cognitive processes. Eleven EFL students in the individual group and 22 students (11 pairs) in the collaborative groups were asked to report their cognitive processes when working on a written discourse completion task (WDCT). The WDCT performances were rated on a five-point Likert-type scale, and the verbalizations were analyzed in terms of pragmatic-related episodes (PREs). Results showed that the individual group scored higher on content, whereas the collaborative group outperformed their counterparts on forms. Regarding the cognitive processes, the individual group tended to plan the general direction of their writing before writing the WDCT and paid more attention to sociopragmatic content while writing. In contrast, the collaborative group planned specific details before the task and attended to pragmalinguistic forms more often while writing.

Aggressive Language in Literature: A Pragmatic Approach

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.

‘May I do something for you?’: The effects of audio-visual material (captioned and non-captioned) on EFL pragmatic learning

The present study deals with the effect of audio-visual material for second language (L2) pragmatic learning in the foreign language classroom. More specifically, it analyzes whether being exposed to captioned and non-captioned input in an experimental condition entailing no instruction on pragmatics might have any influence on the learners’ pragmatic performance. To this aim, two intact classes ( N = 31) of learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) at a B1 level were exposed to videos with captions and without captions, respectively. Before and after watching the videos, all the students were asked to carry out a role-play task with situations like those in the videos. A mixed-methods approach was used to analyze the learners’ performance in terms of types and number of strategies to perform speech acts (quantitative) and in terms of pragmatic appropriateness (qualitative). Findings show that both groups used more polite strategies after watching the videos, regardless of the captioned/non-captioned condition, which seems to confirm the contribution of audio-visual material for the learning of the L2 pragmatics in an incidental way. Concerning pragmatic appropriateness, we found that learners in the captioned condition produced more pragmalinguistically appropriate role-plays than learners in the non-captioned condition, thus suggesting a positive effect of captioned material on the learning of the L2 pragmatics. Such results are discussed in relation to the few previous similar studies in the field.

Levels of Warning in the Text messages Sent by the Saudi Ministry of Health during Covid-19 Pandemic

With the beginning of the Corona pandemic at the beginning of 2019 and its rapid spread, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was among the countries that moved very quickly to address this matter. All state institutions played the role related to them. Saudi Ministry of Health launched an intensive package of warning, awareness, and guidance in the form of text messages through multiple electronic platforms to reach the largest segment of society. The study took three sources to collect data, three telecommunications companies, the official account of the Ministry of Health on Twitter and the official website of the Ministry. The current study was based on analyzing these messages in terms of warning levels in various speech acts according to the theories of Austin and Searle, in addition to analyzing the content in terms of its relationship to the actual text and the objective context. The study tried to seek the warning levels in the messages which were classified into three sections: high, moderate, and low and identified the types of actions that represent the levels. The significance of the study lies in revealing how language is used to raise the level of awareness in society. Based on the research methods, this study is analytical and descriptive, based on the theory of speech acts in its foundations, and the development of a reference model for analyzing warning levels that depend on the type of action and its implications, taking into account the indirect speech acts. The results of the study concluded that there is a clear discrepancy in the use of speech verbs to express the three levels of warning.

AN ANALYSIS OF EXPRESSIVE SPEECH ACTS OF THE MAIN CHARACTER IN JOKER MOVIE

This research was aimed to find out the types of expressive speech acts and the context of the expressive speech acts uttered by the main character in Joker movie. The design of the research was a descriptive qualitative research. The data source was Joker Movie directed by Todd Phillips The movie was released in 2019 and its duration was about 1 hour 55 minutes. The data of this research were utterances that included as expressive speech acts. The data were collected by watching, observing, and writing down the utterances indicated as expressive speech acts found in the movie. The data were analyzed by using formal and informal methods. The data were presented by using table (Formal method) and description (Informal method). The contexts of the utterances were analyzed by using SPEAKING model. The results of the analysis show that there are six classifications of expressive speech acts uttered by the main character in Joker Movie. The total number of expressive speech acts found in the movie was 27 utterances covering 7 utterances of greeting, 6 utterances of agreeing, 5 utterances of thanking, 4 utterances of apologizing, 3 utterances of wishing, and 2 utterances of exclamation. The researcher found out that the expressive speeech act of greeting is the most frequently used by the main character. It shows that the main character likes to express his salutation when he meets someone.