Witty Banter in Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” and “The Taming of the Shrew”: A Pragmatic Study (Published)
Banter could be manifested in everyday conversations to foster social intimacy and establish a bond of familiarity. Despite the effectiveness of this topic, it has not been given ample research in literary works, particularly plays. Thus, the present study deals with this topic from a pragmatic point of view to find answers to the following questions: (1) what are the pragmatic strategies via which banter is realized in the selected plays? (2) what are the pragmatic functions of banter? The study hypothesizes that (1) banter is realized via various pragmatic strategies such as mocking and teasing, and (2) banter performs variegated pragmatic functions. Related literature is surveyed and a model is developed for the purpose of analyzing the data. Besides, a statistical means represented by the percentage equation is used to calculate the results.
Keywords: Strategies., banter, mock-impoliteness, rhetorical devices