Indirect Speech Research Articles

Hedging in the Swiss version of economic discourse

This article explores the linguo-pragmatic potential of hedging, which is a means of speech insurance. The purpose of the study is to identify and describe linguistically the means of hedging used by journalists in Swiss articles on economic issues, taking into account the peculiarities of the language situation in German-speaking Switzerland. An attempt is made to determine the pragmatic function of the identified hedging instruments. The materials of the study are fragments from economic articles of the major Swiss media containing various hedging markers. So far, no attempts have been made in Russian and foreign German studies to describe linguistically the means of hedging in Swiss economic discourse. The study identified lexical and grammatical hedging: Konjunktiv I as a marker of indirect speech; hypothetical constructions with Konjunktiv II; means of implementing ambiguity and approximation; impersonal constructions; concessive structures; lexical means of realization of subjective forecast; modal words. The analysis showed that most often the authors of news reports use Konjunktiv I as a marker of indirect speech, as well as hypothetical constructions with Konjunktiv II. The conducted linguo-pragmatic analysis revealed that the authors of journalistic texts use these linguistic means in order to minimize their responsibility for what is being reported, referring to an external source of information, to express doubt, non-categorical assumption about future events, to label uncertainty and shirk responsibility when in doubt about exact facts or figures. The use of hedging in journalism also contributes to the dedramatization of the situation, to the preservation of the reputation of companies and the prevention of critical reviews and the growth of panic on the part of readers. The data obtained as a result of the analysis can be used in linguistic analysis and interpretation of economic texts to identify the linguistic features of the Swiss economic discourse.

Pragmatic Study: an Analysis of Form and Function of Arabic Directive Speaking in "the Story' of Imam Hasan Basri RA” Animation / دراسة تداولية: تحليل لشكل ووظيفة أفعال الكلام للتوجيه العربي في الرسوم المتحركة "قصة الإمام الحسن البصري"

Pragmatics is one of the branches of linguistics which includes the relationship between outside language and the intent of an utterance, while pragmatics itself is a linguistics study that studies the use of language associated with the context in which it is used. The meaning of the language can be understood if the context is known. This study focuses on one branch of pragmatics, namely Arabic directive speech acts in the animation "The Story of Imam Hasan Al-Bashri ''. This study serves to explain and describe the forms and functions of Arabic directive speech acts in the animation "The Story of Imam Hasan Al-Bashri". The method used by the researcher is a descriptive analysis method. It is carried out through three stages, namely: (1) data collection stage, (2) data analysis stage, (3) data analysis presentation stage. The results of this study indicate that the form of speech acts in the animation "Kisah Imam Hasan Al-Bashri '' consists of: (1) direct speech acts, (2) indirect speech acts, (3) literal speech acts, and (4) speech acts. not literal speech. Meanwhile, the functions of Arabic speech acts in the animation "The Story of Imam Hasan Al-Bashri" include: Requestives directive speech acts, Questions directive speech acts, Requirements directive speech acts, Prohibitives directive speech acts, Permissives directive speech acts, Advisores directive speech acts.

Cognitive features of indirect speech acts

ABSTRACT The offer of some cake can be declined by saying “I am on a diet” – an indirect reply. Here, we asked whether certain well-established psychological and conceptual features are linked to the (in)directness of speech acts – an issue unexplored so far. Subjects rated direct and indirect speech acts performed by the same critical linguistic forms in different dialogic contexts. We find that indirect replies were understood with less certainty, were less predictable by, less coherent with and less semantically similar to their context question. These effects were smaller when direct and indirect replies were matched for the type of speech acts for which they were used, compared to when they were not speech act matched. Crucially, all measured cognitive dimensions were strongly associated with each other. These findings suggest that indirectness goes hand-in-hand with a set of cognitive features, which should be taken into account when interpreting experimental findings, including neuroimaging studies of indirectness.

Comparative Analysis of Flash Fiction by A.P. Chekhov and J. Joyce: The Narrator and the Main Character in the Structure of Narrative

The article presents a comparative analysis of the relationship between the narrator and the main character in the structure of flash fiction by A.P. Chekhov and J. Joyce. The authors conclude that there are typological similarities in the relationship between the narrator and the main character in the flash fiction of A.P. Chekhov and J. Joyce. This was influenced by the global trend in literature at the turn of the 20th century, according to which the role of the author as an omniscient and omnipresent demiurge of the fictional world started to wane. The paper puts forward that the unique entwinement of the narrator’s and the main character’s voices in A.P. Chekhov’s and J. Joyce’s short stories is the main structural-constructive factor of the free indirect speech and contributes to revealing the subtle creative substance of the works.

A Study of Authorial Voice in To the Lighthouse from the Perspective of Feminist Narratology

The history of Western literature since the 18th century has witnessed some excellent works by women writers, however, due to stereotypes and the authority of male discourse, these writers still endured great pressure from society in the creative process. To break the authority and gain recognition, female writers gradually formed a narrative voice belonging to themselves. In her novel To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf uses a great deal of interior monologue and free indirect discourse to cleverly construct her narrative authority. This adequately denotes the essence of feminist narratology, which is the combination of feminism and classical structuralist narratology, and a way to study feminist works as well. Concerning feminist narratology, this paper investigates the concept of feminist narrative voice, three types of which are personal voice, authorial voice, and communal voice. In To the Lighthouse, Woolf mostly employs authorial voice. To gain a further insight into this, the paper discusses the origin and concept of feminist narrative voice, and then examines Woolf's writing techniques adopted in To the Lighthouse, the use of authorial voice and the construction of female narrative authority in the novel. The study concludes that the use of authorial voice in To the Lighthouse contributes to a shift in women's marginalization and the struggle for male dominance narratives, and demonstrates fully Woolf's feminist thinking throughout the work.

Pragmatic Analysis of Language Use of Nigerian Army on Parade Ground

In any society, it is generally believed that peaceful co-existence hinges on effective communication and understanding of the peculiarities of each section in the society. The generation of meaning is therefore a sine qua non of mutual relationships in a communication situation. This study examines the use of language in the daily routines of the Nigerian Army. It makes use of pragmatic tools to interpret the utterances and the symbolic actions that take place during parade exercises in the Nigerian Army. The study is empirical and the analysis is guided by Austin’s Speech Act theory, supported with Searle’s Indirect Speech Act and Bach and Harnish’s Intention and Inference. The data analyzed in the study were recorded during a parade in a Nigerian Army Division at Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria. Participant observation was also employed. The study reveals that context, mutual contextual beliefs and non-verbal communication are prominent pragmatic tools in the language of the Nigerian Army during parades. It was found that activities on the parade ground are carried out using both verbal and non-verbal means of communication. Symbols, dress and appearance are significant, non-verbal features in the Nigerian Army. The study also revealed that regular use of authority in the military mirrors the illocutionary force of command; therefore, the language is more often than not forceful rather than persuasive. As such ‘alerting’ ‘informing’ and ‘commanding’ acts are prominent acts in parade language.

Fungsi dan Jenis Tindak Tutur Komunikasi Panitia Pembangunan Musala Arroudloh Dusun Belut Desa Ngumpul Kecamatan Jogoroto Kabupaten Jombang

This study aims to describe the function and types of speech acts of communication of the Musala Arroudloh development committee, Belut Hamlet, Ngumpul Village, Jogoroto District, Jombang Regency. This research design is descriptive-qualitative. The subject of this research is the Musala Arroudloh development committee, Belut hamlet, Ngumpul Village, Jogoroto District, Jombang Regency. The object of research is the function and types of speech acts that were uttered by the development committee of Musala Arroudloh Belut Hamlet, Ngumpul Village, Jogoroto District, Jombang Regency. Data collection techniques include observation, interviews, and documentation. Data analysis carried out by researchers are: (1) data reduction. This activity includes selecting data on the basis of its level of relevance and relation to data groups, compiling data in similar units, and creating codes. (2) displaying data by compiling relevant data, (3) drawing conclusions to get a meaning of scattered symptoms to have deep meaning. The results of this study indicate that: (1) the function of the speech act of the Musala Arroudloh development committee, includes the assertive function, directive function, commissive function, and expressive function. (2) types of speech acts of the Musala Arroudloh development committee, namely direct lateral speech acts and lateral indirect speech acts. The function of assertive and directive speech acts is a function that often appears in communication opportunities between the Musala Arroudloh development committee, while the type of direct lateral speech act is the type of speech act that is widely used in communication opportunities between committees because there is no difference between speech and meaning and delivery intent.
 Keywords: the speech of the Arroudloh Musala development committee, functions and types of speech acts

The hammer, the mallet, and the nail

The hammer, the mallet, and the nail

Miklós Erdély, Ernst Bloch, Kurt Gödel, and Hidden Green

Abstract The introductory text interprets Eszter Bartholy's article about Miklós Erdély's exhibition Hidden Green. Bartholy's article is based on an interview with Erdély, and contain direct and indirect quotes from one of the most significant Hungarian neo-avant-garde artist. The introductory text describes how Erdély's own interpretation of his exhibition Hidden Green is present in Bartholy's article. Bartholy's analysis of Hidden Green sheds light on the way that Erdély combines ars poetica and art theory, while directly reflecting on utopia and on the social function and significance of art. While the text about Hidden Green seems like the interpretation of an exhibition, Bartholy and Erdély, in a virtual dialogue with thinkers including Ernst Bloch, Kurt Gödel, and Allan Kaprow, also make categorical claims about art theory and social theory. The introductory text argues that Erdély's Hidden Green and Bartholy's article connected and confronted–in the spirit of neo-avant-garde montage techniques–Hungarian popular and folk culture, Marxist aesthetic theories of utopias, and the paradoxes of modern natural sciences.

Emotion Recognition, Empathy, or ToM? The Influence of Social Cognition on Communication in Traumatic Brain Injury

Abstract: Communication disorders following traumatic brain injury have been attributed to social-cognitive dysfunctions. However, this relationship is not always clearly demonstrated in empirical research. This systematic review seeks to clarify the relationship by considering different subcomponents of social cognition and communication. The results show that, for the social-cognitive subcomponents of emotion recognition and empathy, evidence is available mainly for a relationship to global communication abilities. However, we did find a systematic relationship between Theory of Mind and individual aspects of pragmatics (i. e., the processing of irony/sarcasm, insincerity, indirect speech acts). To strengthen the evidence for the role of social-cognitive subcomponents concerning communication, future research could implement a core outcome set based on the present findings.

Tom Stoppard: A Life

Tom Stoppard: A Life

George Eliot’s Visual Moments: The Construction of Character in Daniel Deronda

George Eliot’s last novel, Daniel Deronda, is insistently concerned with the visual and with the problematics of looking. Like many of Eliot’s novels, it examines the visual in relation to notions of reliability, perspective, interpretation, representation, the subjective versus the objective, and the relation between observation and imagination. This paper is concerned with the creation and development of character as unveiled through visual moments within the diegesis. Focus is on the function of the visual between characters and the study proposes that visual moments – understood as the combination of looker, “lookee”, the manner of looking or seeing, the context of looking and the form of narration – significantly contribute to the development of characterisation. Furthermore, it suggests that George Eliot, to a large extent, locates characters’ personal beliefs and ideologies in visual exchanges. Visual moments in Daniel Deronda are identified with the aid of corpus linguistic methods. Corpora aid to pinpoint the frequency and range of lexical items related to the visual and this study examines the lexeme look, specifically, in order to trace and unravel character construction and development. By so doing, it aims to complement or qualify the composition of character as presented through the combination of direct speech, free indirect discourse and the agency of a reflective and analytical narrative voice.

Selfies with Emma: Jane Austen’s Social Media

This essay identifies a series of shared media—drawings, riddles, alphabets, etc.—in Jane Austen’s Emma that generate social networks by establishing public forums for intersubjectivity. These narrative media allow characters to broadcast their own fantasies about the community while refracting the interiorities of others. Observing this trend, I suggest that narrative media in the novel enable characters to participate in something like free indirect discourse (FID) alongside Austen’s narrator, making authorship an extension of sociability. My claim is that social media in the novel both represent and stage the struggle for voice and narrative power between Emma and the novel’s minor characters. Bringing together narrative theory, network theory, and contemporary writings about social media, I propose that we are now in a better position to sharpen our understanding of FID in Austen’s late fiction because of our literacy in social media technologies and our increasing sensitivity to virtual storytelling.

We-Narratives: Collective Storytelling in Contemporary Fiction

We-Narratives: Collective Storytelling in Contemporary Fiction

Structural-grammatical and semantic features of the functioning of indirect speech in orthodox prayers

Linguistic features of different confessional style genres have always aroused the scientists’ interest. One of the most common genres in the confessional style is the prayer, which has a communicative-pragmatic orientation formed due to its structure and several language devices, including elements of indirect speech, introduced into the prayer discourse. The relevance of the topic of the article resulted from the prayer interpretation as a representant of the endophase (internal) speech of the religious, which has a monological-dialogical structure and mostly is expressed through imperative constructions. The object of the article is 458 Orthodox prayers (9.1 pages). The purpose of the article is to substantiate the basis for interpreting prayers as examples of indirect speech and to characterize the constructions that represent direct, indirect, and free direct speech of the recipient, which are directed to higher forces. The purpose implies the realization of implementing a set of tasks: 1) to define the prayer as an indirect speech representant; 2) to analyze the types of sentences with indirect speech, detected in the prayer discourse; 3) to characterize the introductory elements, which illustrate indirect speech in prayers. The analysis of Orthodox prayers confirmed the hypothesis about qualification its as examples of indirect speech, since in such structure imperative, interrogative and exclamation sentences are actively functioning. They often include direct (55 fixations), indirect (128) and free direct (177) speech, and especially a significant number of vocal constructions. In the author’s words or parts of complex sentences related to them verbs of speech predominate (благати, вигукнути, відповісти, говорити, казати, обіцяти, промовляти, просити, співати etc.), thinking and cognition (бажати, думати, забути, знати, зрозуміти, пам’ятати), perception (вислухати, чути) and especially those related to the religious sphere (благословляти, вірувати, молити, присягати, сповідувати). The study of thedevices of transmitting indirect speech in other sub-styles of confessional style deserves attention in the future. It will allow to form a holistic picture of the reproductive features of our language. Keywords: confessional style, genre, prayer, indirect speech, direct speech, free direct speech, imperative, exclamatory, interrogative sentences.

Speech Acts in Announcements of Supermarkets and Hypermarkets in Bangkok during the COVID-19 Outbreak

This qualitative study aims to investigate speech acts in announcements posted at supermarkets and hypermarkets in Bangkok, Thailand during the COVID-19 outbreak, under the framework of the speech acts theory. The communicative functions and hidden intentions in the language used are also examined. At the data collection stage, the definitions of ‘supermarket’ and ‘hypermarket’ were applied to determine the sources. Then, announcements posted at the entrances to branches of supermarkets and hypermarkets in Bangkok were collected during the period of April 1 - 30, 2020, by taking photographs. The criterion for collecting the announcements was that they had to be information relating to activities stores dealing with the pandemic. The total number of announcements found was 239. After the elimination of those with identical content, 32 announcements were used for the analysis. The findings show four types of speech acts: representatives, directives, expressives, and commissives. Such acts perform the communicative functions of informing customers about sanitary measures, requesting cooperation in following government regulations, expressing feelings toward customers, and showing the determination to operate the business in an ethical manner. The indirect speech acts help reveal the intentions of the stores to create a positive image. The study also reveals characteristics of Thai society in terms of hierarchy and solidarity. The study has implications for knowledge of language use during crises and provides insight into the power of language to communicate things over and above literal meanings.

Ироническое несогласие и возражение в повседневной коммуникации

The paper describes the speech acts of disagreement and objection. An attempt to differentiate these speech acts is made. Direct and conventional indirect speech acts that implement these intentions are presented in dictionaries and textbooks on speech etiquette, as well as described in the scientific literature. The systematic research of contextual and situational indirect speech acts of disagreement and objection has not been practically carried out.
 The research focuses on ironic contextual and situational indirect speech acts of disagreement and objection ("the second degree of indirection"). The aim of the paper is to describe the functioning of these speech acts.
 The methods of definitional analysis, discursive analysis, quantitative analysis, as well as descriptive and analytical method were used in the research.
 The analysis of the material revealed that ironic contextual and situational indirect speech acts of disagreement and objection have the forms of representatives, rogatives, directives, expressives. The research considers examples of combining the intentions of disagreement and objection with other intentions (advice and reproach) in polyintentional contextual and situational indirect speech acts.
 The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that it analyzes the ironic contextual and situational indirect speech acts of disagreement and objections in everyday communication. The analysis of indirect speech implementations of these intentions is carried out. 
 Using the results of the research can be useful for further study of everyday communication and in practical activities of teachers who are taking up the problems of communication and language teaching.

Образ П. А. Столыпина у А. И. Солженицына

In the article the image of P. A. Stolypin is analyzed on the material of The Red Wheel, Diary R-17, memoires and essays by A. I. Solzhenitsyn. The authors trace the course the writer took while working on the artistic presentation of the image of one of the most prominent Russian state figures of the 20th century; they show Solzhenitsyn’s artistry in endeavoring to reveal to the reader all the “prominence”, “expressiveness” of this great person, as well as the significance of Stolypin’s destiny for the future of Russia. The authors of the research observe how in The Red Wheel Stolypin’s destiny is linked to that of Russia, following Solzhenitsyn in comprehending Stolypin as a “doer” responsible to Russia. In the course of the research Stolypin’s chapter with reviews in August 1914, has been analyzed in detail. This enabled the authors to grasp Stolypin’s image as the focal one in The Red Wheel, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, as Solzhenitsyn’s favourite character, conveyed realistically, and, at the same time, personally, compassionately, through “the dialectic of the soul”. The reader perceives a straightforward, strong-willed, dynamic, determined and ethically wholesome politician. The storylines of Guchkov, Bogrov, Nikolas II are essential to understanding Stolypin’s image. Focusing on these characters, the authors of the article show Stolypin’s role in their destinies. In The Red Wheel the artistic image of Stolypin is created by complex forms of inner monologues, quotes, free indirect discourse, the alternation of scenes and reports (summaries of events), by the abundance of the author’s “insertions”, by the multiple functions of irony. In the process of research the texts of P. A. Stolypin’s speeches were drawn upon, his children’s reminiscences, his biography, historians’ opinions. The chosen historical context provided a valuable insight into Solzhenitsyn’s historical method and the writer’s historiosophic reasoning.

Did Feminism Become the Mainstream in Jane Austen’s Work?” “Does Feminism Lies In Jane Austen Emma?”

Feminism is about the equality of every women in the independent society. Feminism has many types on it but it is mainly classified as three major categories they are, i) Main stream / Liberal ii) radical iii) cultural. The plot line of Jane Austen Emma does not comes under feminism because this play is about the mismatching of pairs which is guessed by Emma. In this novel we can’t able to see the dominance of male gender towards women. Women also given right to enhance their own decision. Emma was the last published novel of Jane Austen , novel of manner genre has be used in this novel. At the second part of 18th century, Jane Austen used novel of sensibility in her work. She used irony, indirect speech style and also about realism. All Jane Austen’s novel female characters will be brave, bold, strong and ultimately, they will not be liked distorted characters. And also, they will live in every incident of the novel. In Jane Austen novel women will be playing the leading role rather then men, they will be given major preference. In 1973, According to “EDNA STEEVES” Jane Austen was not a bold woman because she never closely examined the social situation. Does Jane Austen belong to feminist writer?

Dialogue with the past: linguo-stylistic analysis of V. G. Rasputin’s short story "French Lessons" (to the 85th anniversary of the birth)

The relevance of the article is determined by the fact that V. G. Rasputin’s prose is mostly researched from literary and methodological perspectives; less attention is devoted to its linguistic analysis. Despite the abundance of studies focusing on individual aspects of the short story "French Lessons", its holistic linguo-stylistic analysis has not been performed yet. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive description of the linguistic and stylistic specific features of the literary work in question. The research relies on the contextual, aesthetic-stylistic, linguo-poetic methods as well as level-by-level analysis. The paper identified a complex of linguistic means. On the one hand, these means are directed at the sphere of the environment depicted by the writer, and in which the main plot events unfold. On the other hand, they help to create the images of the author, the narrator, and the characters. The paper concludes that V. G. Rasputin made extensive use of lexical phraseological and grammatical means characteristic of the colloquial style to depict "fictional time". The characters’ specific speech features are reflected in the "author’s register" of the narration. The stylistic leitmotif of the story that determines both its composition and its imagery is a complex interaction of different viewpoints (those of the author, the adult narrator, the child-narrator, the characters). "Narrative time" is an amalgamation of colloquial and stylistically neutral means, a frequent occurrence of the adult narrator’s free indirect speech employed to assess the protagonist’s actions and emotions.