Classism Hate Speech in Katherine Mansfield's Short Story ‘The Doll’s House’: A Pragmatic Study

Iman Noori Jassim,Muslih Shwaysh Ahmed

doi:10.36231/coedw.v32i3.1521

Iman Noori Jassim, Muslih Shwaysh Ahmed

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.36231/coedw.v32i3.1521

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Abstract

Hate speech (henceforth HS) has recently spread and become an important issue. This type of speech in children's writings has a particular formulation and specific objectives that the authors intend to convey. Thus, the study aims at examining qualitatively and quantitatively the classism HS and its pragmatic functions via identifying the speech acts used to express classism HS, the implicature instigated as well as impoliteness. Since pragmatics is the study of language in context, which is greatly related to the situations and speaker’s intention, this study depends on pragmatic theoriespeech acts, impoliteness and conversational implicature) to analyze the data which are taken from Katherine Mansfield's short story (The Doll’s House). The data has been analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. It is qualitative, as it is dedicated to describe HS phenomenon that is found in the selected short story, depending on an eclectic model. Regarding the quantitative analysis, the researchers have used SPSS 23 program to determine the frequencies and percentages of the strategies that are intended to be measured. The study has concluded that HS has multiple dimensions that are difficult to interpret outside the context of speech. It can be conveyed by many strategies, both explicit and covert. Further, the simplest form of HS involves an insult in addition to other functions, such as disapproval and humiliation.

Highlights

Communication is effective through understanding the linguistic meaning of speech, and through inferring what speakers intend to say behind their speech (Sperber & Wilson, 1986)
Instance; 2. identifying the HS instances; 3. specifying the type of speech act used to express classism HS; 4. determining the impoliteness strategy involved in the HS in question; 5. pinpointing the conversational implicature of each instance; and 6. clarifying the pragmatic function of each HS
3.3.1 Qualitative Analysis and Findings To achieve the first objective, the researchers need to investigate qualitatively the contextual hints, HS, speech acts, impoliteness, conversational implicatures, and the pragmatic functions. Such an investigation involves applying Fortuna and Nunes’s (2018) criteria to each utterance found within selected short stories, such as: 1) exclusion language, 2) arrogance language, 3) belittled language, 4) negative stereotypes, or 5) racial slurs, together with the other pragmatic theories selected as models of the study

Summary

Introduction

Communication is effective through understanding the linguistic meaning of speech, and through inferring what speakers intend to say behind their speech (Sperber & Wilson, 1986). Different communicative strategies can serve different linguistic functions, such as, asking, offering, warning, evaluating, asserting, and so forth. It could be stated that people can use language to perform good actions as well as harmful actions, such as insulting or harming someone through hostile or offensive utterance. These harmful actions can be named Hated Speech ( HS). That means, determining whether speech is HS or ordinary speech can be challenging in many situations

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