Presupposition, which indicates a prior assumption, is a vital notion in both semantic and pragmatic disciplines. It refers to assumptions implicitly made by interlocutors, which are necessary for the correct interpretation of an utterance. Although there is a general agreement that presupposition is a universal property of Language, there are various propositions concerning its nature. However, this research work proposes that presupposition is a contextual term, thus, is more pragmatic than semantic in its nature.Although Semantics and Pragmatics are two distinct disciplines, they are interrelated and complementary to each other, since meaning proper involves both, and since there is no clear borderline between the two disciplines. However, due to the limitations of the research paper, presupposition is dealt with as a contextual notion, thus pragmatically.
This study examines postgraduate students’ awareness of pragmatic aspects, including Grice Maxims, Politeness, and Direct and Indirect forms of speech. According to Paul Grice’s theory of implicature, which is considered one of the most important contributions to pragmatics, this paper discusses how postgraduate students can meet the cooperative principle when communicating effectively. It also outlines how does politeness principles influence obeying or violating the maxims and how is the use of direct or indirect forms of utterances prompted by politeness. Sixteen master’s students of Linguistics and Literature were asked to take a multiple-choice test. The test will be represented along with the interpretation of each optio
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This paper aims at studying the illocutionary speech acts: direct and indirect to show the most dominant ones in a presidential speech delivered by the USA president. The speech is about the most critical health issue in the world, COVID-19 outbreak. A descriptive qualitative study was conducted by observing the first speech delivered by president Trump concerning coronavirus outbreak and surveying the illocutionary acts: directive, declarative, commissive, expressive, and representative. Searle's (1985) classification of illocutionary speech acts is adopted in the analysis.
What are the main types of the illocutionary speech acts performed by Trump in his speech?; Why does
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This research is an attempt to explore a social and pragmatic phenomenon of lamentation in elegies of Gray and AL-Khansaa' who represent two different cultures. It illustrates the intended meaning of lamentation in English and Arabic and finds how the two languages express this purpose of poetry by analysing it socio-pragmatically adopting Searle's models (1969),and its modifications. Lamentation is considered as a mournful poem lamenting the death of whole humanity as Gray's elegy and of an individual as AL-Khansaa's elegy. So, Gray portrays a universal picture concerning his lamentation, while AL-Khansaa' portrays an individual and subjective picture regarding her lamentation. As branches of linguistics, sociolinguistics de
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As cultures are mainly divided into collectivistic and individualistic, members tend to emphasize, through communication, either their position as part of their group or their independence from the group. This emphasis is manifested in using the pragmatic concepts of positive politeness and negative politeness. The present study looks into the reflection of these two cultures in Rockstar’s renowned video game, Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018). It aims at identifying the two cultures as present in the game and showing their significance to its narrative. It fills the gap in the studies of language used within video games as well as its cultural reflections. The study addresses the following question: What are the positive and negative
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There is much research on the syntax-semantics and the syntax-phonology interaction. However, the exact relation between prosodic patterns and informational structure (as part of pragmatics) is still to be investigated. In this empirical study, we challenge the view that prosody and pragmatics are two autonomous levels of grammar. This paper is an analysis of the narrative poem ‘Mending Wall’ recited by Robert Frost to explore the prosodic features and the associated pragmatic meanings. It is proposed that a set of intentionally manipulated suprasegmental features form a prosodic grammar that works in line with syntax and lexical choices to build the narrative discourse and achieve pragmatic meanings. The paper shows that the am
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Language ecology is the interactions between the environment and language. Such a discipline, ‘language ecology’ or ‘ecolinguistics has been founded by Einar Haugen’. Accordingly, the study aims at qualitatively reviewing the theoretical and conceptual issues surrounding the subject of language ecology by tracing the roots of language ecology. It further highlights the fundamental inconsistencies between how the concept of ecology is perceived in sociology and biology, and is applied to language, particularly, transposing the main central concepts of bio-ecology, such as relationship/interaction, environment, and organism to human language and theory of ecological-linguistic. The theory wavers among placing the focus
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Language is essential for politics, for producing, disseminating, engaging with, and reacting to political discourse. The pragmatics of political speeches is crucial to the development of effective political communication tactics. Thus, speech is situated at the intersection of rhetoric, linguistics, and politics. In communication, intent is a pragmatic factor that plays a crucial role at the time of the communication process. Speech is of paramount importance to the social and political domains. Through the use of concepts and the relationship between language and politics, the study analyzes the function of language in communication and interpretation of intentions. The study of the relationships between language and the situations in whi
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