speech acts

Pragmatics is a new approach in modern linguistic studies that emerged and developed in the 1970s. It was initiated by philosopher J.L. Austin and further developed by his student John Searle. Pragmatics focuses on speech, performance, and speakers' intentions by studying language and how speakers comprehend it. It combines syntax, semantics, and context, aiming to provide an explanation of the communication process, moving beyond structural analysis to studying discourse and its external elements such as time, place, speaker, and addressee. Pragmatics is a rich linguistic discipline that has introduced many new ideas, concepts, and perspectives, supported by its connection with other fields such as logic, semiotics, and sociology. Pragmatics is concerned with analyzing various discourses and explaining the communication process to reveal the speaker's intentions and the meaning they wish to convey to the audience. The study aims to highlight the role of speech acts in the poetry of Al-Tughrai, analyzing his poetic discourse to uncover his intentions and examining the communicative function of sentences in his texts within Searle’s classification of speech acts. The study exploits these analytical tools to find the overall structure of Al-Tughrai’s poems and also highlights the poet's objectives in influencing the reader and revealing the true meaning of the speaker's statements. The study applies these ideas to a poetic corpus, showcasing the poet's ability to utilize pragmatic sentences, and focuses on understanding each sentence within the text and its relationship to other sentences, eventually uncovering the major semantic structure of his poetry. The research reveals the structural features and shows how speech acts, one of the most prevalent linguistic phenomena in texts, significantly contribute to the coherence and cohesion of the text. The research adopts a descriptive-analytical methodology based on pragmatics, especially in light of Searle’s classification, using statistics to uncover the pragmatic functions of sentences in Al-Tughrai’s poetry. It analyzes his speech acts to highlight how they are employed to achieve his literary and artistic goals through the analysis of selected texts and the poet’s techniques in utilizing speech acts. The study stands out by addressing a poet not previously explored from a pragmatic perspective in light of Searle’s view, and it focuses on presenting diverse examples according to Searle’s five classifications: assertives, directives, commissives, expressives, and declarations. It analyzes their speech acts, emphasizing the speaker's intentions and uncovering his meanings based on the context and circumstantial clues. Assertives aim to describe a specific event, marked by the possibility of truth or falsehood. Directives aim to compel the addressee to perform a certain action. Commissives commit the speaker to future action, expressives reveal a psychological state, and declarations seek to bring about a change in the external world. The study reveals that the poet uses a complex poetic structure with intensive use of speech acts and advanced rhetorical techniques that contribute to conveying his messages effectively, giving his poetry a distinctive pragmatic character. The impact of speech acts in Al-Tughrai’s poetry is evident through text analysis and uncovering the internal relationships between the lines. The poet demonstrates an exceptional ability to employ speech acts to create multiple effects on the reader, reflecting his deep understanding of pragmatics and its application in literature. Additionally, the poet’s personal experiences and emotions are mirrored in his poetry, lending it a realistic and humanistic quality that expresses human emotions and concerns. The study concludes that speech acts in Al-Tughrai’s poetry contribute to clarifying the meaning of the text and highlighting the poet’s intentions. For instance, assertives are used for guidance, advice, wisdom, and reporting the poet’s internal turmoil, psychological distress, pain, and unfulfilled ambitions. Directives are employed to change the behavior of the addressee, such as challenges, urging action, or making requests. Commissives reflect the poet’s capacity to fulfill promises, such as relieving distress, demonstrating loyalty and trust, and sharing wealth or aspirations of honor and freedom. Expressives convey the poet’s psychological states, such as congratulations, condolences, optimism for forgiveness, and social or psychological issues. Declarations are reflected in acts that change the external world, such as responding to lessons and admonitions, the oneness of God, the torment of love, the pains of the soul, the onset of old age, farewells to youth, acknowledgment, and denial. The poet used various means to accomplish his speech acts, including arguments, varied sentence forms, rhythmic structures, repetition, and strong emotions, as a powerful persuasive force, reflecting the poet's sincerity in his poetic experience and achieving the intended message. Assertives, directives, and expressives are the most common in Al-Tughrai’s poetry, revealing his ideas and psychological insights. Finally, the study provides a theoretical and methodological framework that can be adapted for analyzing other literary texts, contributing to the advancement of linguistic and literary studies in general.

Discourse analysis often employs the theory of speech acts, a cornerstone of pragmatics that explores language's role in social interaction and offers a potent method for dissecting literary texts. John Searle, building upon the philosophical foundations laid by his mentor Austin, concentrated on language's philosophical dimensions and classified speech acts into five categories: assertives, expressives, directives, commissives, and declarations. This study scrutinizes Imam Ali's letter to Malik al-Ashtar using Searle's speech act theory. Findings suggest that directive acts are most prevalent in Imam Ali's political discourse, with commands and persuasions being used to engage Malik al-Ashtar's attention and to steer him toward the letter's content and Imam Ali's viewpoints. Imam Ali adeptly employed these directive acts to maintain his audience's engagement. Assertive acts, used for clarification and exposition, are also prominent in his letters. Imam Ali relied on these to recount past events or to issue warnings, as his primary objective in writing was to enlighten and inform Malik al-Ashtar. Expressive acts, which convey the writer's sentiments, perspectives, and reflections on occurrences, are less frequent in Imam Ali's correspondence and are fitting given the letters' context. Commissive acts are similarly scarce, as Imam Ali did not outline future actions for Malik, and the letters lack a commissive character. Furthermore, Imam Ali utilized declarative acts to proclaim new conditions for Malik, employing verbs such as appointing, announcing, and revoking, which are characteristic of declarative speech acts that announce changes in the world.

Pragmatics, a branch of linguistic studies, focuses on language as a tool for communication with linguistic pragmatics examining speech acts as a fundamental aspect of this field. John Searle is a prominent figure in this area, drawing on the hypotheses of his teacher, Austin, while also developing a new classification of speech acts that considers contextual data and the roles of both parties in communication. This research applied Searle's theory of speech acts to the poem "Purple Grass that Warms in the Bowels of the Wind" by Muhammad Saber Obaid, aiming to uncover the linguistic characteristics and intentions of the poet's discourse. The findings revealed that the linguistic composition of the poem was intricately linked to its meanings, purposes, and the poet's intentions, transcending mere declarative and structural linguistic patterns. Additionally, the poem utilized directive verbs to incite a transformative response from the reader, mobilizing them in a revolutionary manner. The poem aimed to reject and challenge the materialistic tendencies within individuals, urging them to confront and rebuild after overcoming the emotional and spiritual darkness of modern life. It encouraged individuals to embrace the existential sacred and resist the profane forces that dominated the human spirit. Throughout the poem, warning verbs illuminated a future characterized by transparency and clarity, highlighting the negativity of current realities and provoking action against behaviors that could lead to future tragedy and human suffering. The poem was replete with expressive verbs that conveyed the poet's sorrow and inner turmoil resulting from the dominance of materialism. The spiritual aspect was the ultimate purpose underlying the poet's creative work with linguistic systems and phenomenal patterns serving to confront the deviant and dark aspects of the human spirit, instilling certainty about the inevitability of modern man's tragedy when succumbing to inner brutality and external profanity. The sacred resided within, deeply rooted in the soul, prompting individuals to bravely confront the darker aspects of their being. This pragmatic vision aligned with Searle's perspective on speech acts.

Gaining a high level of proficiency is the ultimate aspiration of all language learners, and the use of apology and politeness strategies is consistently associated with the levels of language proficiency. Owing to the significance of speech acts, politeness strategies, and level of proficiency, this study aimed to investigate the realization of apology speech acts and politeness strategies among Iranian EFL learners to examine and compare the lower-intermediate and advanced learners’ use of apology and politeness strategies. To achieve this goal, 320 learners were selected out of 390 EFL learners who took a test of English language proficiency and were then divided into lower-intermediate and advanced levels. The findings of the study revealed significant differences between lower-intermediate and advanced Iranian EFL learners in the realization of the speech act of apology and politeness strategies. Advanced learners preferred to use more indirect and complicated forms of apology speech acts and tended to apply negative politeness and off-record strategies more than the lower-intermediate learners did. However, lower-intermediate learners preferred to use simple and more direct forms of apology and politeness strategies. It can be concluded that as learners increase their knowledge in the target language, and as their interlanguages get closer to the target language, they tend to apply more complicated and native-like speech acts and strategies

Language as an effective tool in the continuous exchange of thought, emotion and experience is a prominent feature of man. The fundamental importance of language in creating the communication process has caused the components of this systematic body to be researched and studied by experts in the field of linguistics from various angles, and the need for research in the application of pragmatics is an important form of linguistic research. Pragmatics is the study of co- text meaning and the exploration of invisible meanings that the speaker / writer intends to convey. In the meantime, "court letters" stand such an analysis well because they sometimes find special, extraordinary, and sensitive tasks; Letters that, because of their existential characteristics, such as distinct political conditions, power struggles, areas of confrontation between social classes, specific audiences, and the like, are considered outstanding and thought-provoking works. Based on the pragmatic theories of Yule, the present article examines one of the most prominent court letters, "Letter from the nobles of the Ghaznavid state to Massoud " in Tarikh Beyhaqi, and examines the implicative message and speech acts of this letter. Realizing the overt and covert messages of this letter is crucial because this strategy not only reflects the power structure and social and human relations that reflect the hidden efforts of the authors in changing the current political situation. The present study can be used as a window to understand the special treatment of certain types of literary texts, "court letters".

The authors in the present study attempt to investigate the speech act of compliments and its semantic boundary engagement with other speech acts of positive assessment of the speaker from the listener such as "approval", "praise", and "flattery ". The hypothesis of the present study is that the semantic boundary of speech acts containing positive assessment of the speaker depending on the verbal culture of the speakers of Russian and Iranian verbal environment is different,  and it is open to change in such a way that if a face expression in the Iranian cultural verbal environment is complimented, that expression may find the color and smell of flattery in the Russian verbal environment; in other words, an action with a positive assessment to an action with a negative assessment of the listener towards the speaker is interpreted as flattery. Furthermore, the compliment structures in each verbal culture have gender differences and characteristics (male and female). That is, the group of formulas used for men is inapplicable for women and vice versa. Iranian literature and compliments are interpreted as politeness in international research. Goffman (1955, 1976), Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987), and Leech (1983) were the founders of these studies (Faika, 2016, p. 109). In other linguistic works written about Taarof, it has been interpreted as ‘compliment’ (Alavi & Zeinali, 2014, p. 139). Evidently, the lack of linguistic equality in other linguistic cultures indicates the absence of linguistic phenomena or their difference in the target linguistic culture. In such cases, ‘Taarof’ is an unequal Iranian cultural phenomenon in other cultures. It can be interpreted neither as compliment nor ceremony nor politeness. Taarof in other cultures should be considered as an untranslatable national cultural phenomenon and presented as the term ‘Taarof’ (Izadi, 2018). In the verbal environment of Iranians, inappropriate compliments are considered a reprehensible practice. Hence, the Iranian proverb ‘reduce the compliments and increase the money’ referring to a situation where one is expected to pay a wage or do something, but instead, the audience witnesses ‘compliment’ and eloquence of the speaker in the concept of ‘Taarof’ and ‘praise’ of his action and performance. Compliment in Russian verbal culture does not have an emotional and expressive tone and rhythm. Such an action is interpreted more as flattery by the Russian listener. However, the predominant feature of Iranian verbal culture as an Eastern culture is an exaggeration in the act of ‘compliment’ and the boundary of the compliment formation from flattery is clear, and the listener has no difficulty in distinguishing the two. However, in most cases, ‘praise’ is used as a tool to form ‘compliment’ in this linguistic culture, and therefore in Iranian verbal culture, the actions of ‘compliment’ are combined with ‘praise’. However, this does not mean an overlap between the two boundaries. The following semantic and situational classifications can be considered in a compliment: 1) Gender: male and female; 2) personal and administrative; 3) Description of the external and internal qualities of the audience; 4) appropriate and inappropriate compliment; 5) compliment with an emotional tone. In the Iranian verbal culture, using expressive speech acts represents politeness and even Taarof with the help of complimenting the audience. Using these speech acts, the speaker shows his attention to the audience, expresses his sincerity in ‘compliment’ and ‘praise’, while in ‘flattery’ there is no element of intimacy, and it is the result of hypocrisy. Depending on how ‘approval’ is used, it can indicate the role of a communication channel, i.e., using approval as a sign of listening carefully to the speaker; or answering his question from the point of view of correct logic. ‘Compliment’ and ‘approval’ can be on the horizontal or vertical axis of socialization, while ‘praise’ and ‘flattery’ can be seen only in the vertical axis of the age hierarchy or social administration. For ‘compliment’ speech act, we can somehow determine expressive and verbal tools in some verbal situations, namely, complementing the appearance, referring to the freshness and youth stability of the audience, meeting after a long time etc., while such a classification is impossible for flattery and praise.

The present study has investigated the speech acts in the interrogative sentences in Salman Savoji's poetry in a descriptive-analytical method. The research findings show that there is a coherent link between Salman's language and his thought i.e. the poet uses language appropriate to his audiences’ position and social status. Salman has used the most questions in his expressive acts. First, he seeks to convince the audience and attract their participation and approval. Salman uses these questions to express his views and gain the approval of the person who is eulogized. Second, he seeks to exaggerate, highlight, and emphasize the content of the speech which corresponds to the texture of the ode, the descriptions, exaggerations and imaginative praises of a eulogy. To observe the didactic aspect of his poetry, and also to maintain the high dignity of the eulogized person, Salman, in the persuasive acts, avoids the direct asking of his request. Doing so, he lowers the obligatory and reprimanding connotation of his words resulting in the audience’s lack of willing to oppose him. Expressive acts usually have close and intertwined meanings. This conceptual affinity creates a vast network of intertwined concepts or "conceptual auras." Therefore it becomes possible to engage the audience's feelings in reading the text and strengthen the desired effect by reinforcing the emotional richness of the words. The speaker's words are explicit and unambiguous in commissive acts, so due to the multi-layered nature of literary texts, this act has little place in poetry.