Abstract

Verbal offences are language crimes that are committed by uttering utterances of certain words or expressions. One of those offences is bribery. Bribery has extensively been studied and compared in different legal systems and legislations, yet, the linguistic aspects of this crime has not been given due interest. The present study attempts to bridge this gap by studying this offence from a pragmatic perspective in terms of discourse phases, schemas, speech acts and implicature in English and Arabic. This study tries to achieve the following aims: Shedding light on the similarities and differences in bribery between English and Arabic in terms of discourse phases, schemas, speech acts and implicature and showing in which community bribery is more common than the other: English or Iraqi-Arabic. The data of this study consisting of 10 complaints in English and Arabic were collected from Courts of Appeal in Iraq, Britain and the United States. They are analyzed in terms of an eclectic model constructed from Shuy (2013), Searle (1975) and Grice (1967). The results indicate that the bribery cases have the same phases and schemas in both languages. The locutionary acts, in both English and Arabic bribery, are expressed by verbs. But in terms of illocutionary acts, bribery is different between English and Arabic. As far as implicature is concerned, bribery is expressed by different linguistic structures in English and Arabic.

Highlights

  • Crimes either occur on the life, body, freedom, dignity of human beings, or against the public job (Betti, 2019: 69).Bribery is one of the most dangerous crimes against the job duties, the public welfare and the public administration of the state

  • The present study attempts to bridge this gap by studying this offence from a pragmatic perspective in terms of discourse phases, schemas, speech acts and implicature in English and Arabic

  • This study tries to achieve the following aims: Shedding light on the similarities and differences in bribery between English and Arabic in terms of discourse phases, schemas, speech acts and implicature and showing in which community bribery is more common than the other: English or Iraqi-Arabic

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

Crimes either occur on the life, body, freedom, dignity of human beings, or against the public job (Betti, 2019: 69). Bribery is one of the most dangerous crimes against the job duties, the public welfare and the public administration of the state. It is a social disease, a bad behaviour and a violation of social values. Which similarities and differences can be found in bribery between both languages in terms of discourse phases, schemas, speech acts and implicature? Shedding light on the differences between the two languages in bribery in terms of discourse phases, schemas, speech acts and implicature; 2. Showing in which community bribery is more common than the other: English or Iraqi-Arabic. English and Arabic are different from each other in expressing bribery in terms of discourse phases, schemas, speech acts and implicature. The study is limited to five English bribery cases and five Arabic ones, and English refers to American and British English while Arabic refers to Iraqi Arabic

LITERATURE REVIEW
Background
General Conclusions

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