Abstract
This paper deals with the pragmatic functions of ostensible invitations as used by Iraqi Arabic speakers. Iraqi society is known of the traditions in which pragmatic language is highly considered that Iraqi Arabic speakers use speech acts in order to pay compliments among each other. The issuance of various ostensible speech acts is to convey other purposes than those conveyed by the genuine ones. It is believed that it is vital to dig deep in the functions of the speech act of invitation as this speech act is mostly used by the Iraqi Arabic speakers in an ostensible manner. So, depending on a test formulated and administered to Iraqi Arabic speakers represented by college students, data have been collected and analyzed to show the strategies and functions used peculiarly by Iraqi Arabic speakers in addition to those stipulated by Clark and Isaac whose model is adapted in the analysis. In terms of the strategies used in addition to the seven ones mentioned in the model, new ones emerged and are believed to be peculiar to the Iraqi Arabic speakers, for they are strongly related to the social norms of the Iraqi society. On the level of pragmatic functions, Iraqi Arabic speakers tend to use ostensible speech act of invitation for various purposes; chief among them are compliment, polite strategy, mitigation devices and others.
Highlights
Widdoson (2007: 14) argues that being able to communicate is to have two layers of linguistic knowledge: one is the knowledge that is encoded by using language, and the other is how the encoded language which is used in an appropriate context.Of late, traditional approaches to speech acts have got weaker, while insincere or non-serious speech acts studies turn even stronger
This paper deals with the pragmatic functions of ostensible invitations as used by Iraqi Arabic speakers
It is defined by Utsumi (2007: 508) as violating such pragmatic principles as maxims of cooperative principle and/or some of the felicity conditions of the speech acts in particular contexts for reasons of speaker’s indented meaning
Summary
Widdoson (2007: 14) argues that being able to communicate is to have two layers of linguistic knowledge: one is the knowledge that is encoded by using language, and the other is how the encoded language which is used in an appropriate context. As one of the ostensible speech acts, ostensible speech act of invitation can be defined and distinguished from those genuine ones under the same five properties of most ostensible speech acts mentioned in section (4) They are: pretense, the inviter only pretends to extend sincere invitation, and the invitee is only pretending to response (usually refuse) to the invitation; mutual recognition, the inviter intends the pretense to be recognized by the invitee according to what the inviter wants; collusion, invitee is expected to collude with the inviter’s pretense; ambivalent, if the inviter was asked “Do you really meant it?”, neither positive nor negative answer is given; and off-record purpose, invitations are extended for off-record purposes related to the various cultural diversifications in order to give politeness account as introduced by Brown and Levinson (1987) (Eslami, 2005: 40). The Iraqi society, by hypothesis, come to extend genuine invitations lacking their own felicity conditions [see 4] in order to be ostensibility used for pragmatic purposes This type of speech act (ostensible speech acts) is social-context dependent. The five properties or three stages, as argued by the present paper, strategies and social variables discussed by Clark and Isaac (1990) are used as model to be followed in the analysis of data
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
