The Current State of Research and Analysis of Pragmatics (Published)
Pragmatics is everywhere in life, and now pragmatics has formed a trend of combining with other disciplines. As a newly developed discipline, pragmatics brings a new perspective to the development of English language and literature. This thesis mainly studies the definition, branches and future trends of pragmatics, which can provide some reference for interdisciplinary research.
Citation: Minghui Li and Jianguang Sun (2023) The Current State of Research and Analysis of Pragmatics, European Journal of English Language and Literature Studies, Vol.11, No.3, pp.1-9
Keywords: Linguistics, Literature Review, Pragmatics
Mother Figures in Charles Dickens’ Novel “David Copperfield”: A Pragma-Discoursal Analysis of Social Deixis (Published)
The theme of motherhood and mother figures constitutes a core pillar in the novel “David Copperfield”. Relying on the context in which the different deictic expressions of person, social, time and place construct the language used to portray mother figures, a pragma-discoursal study can best fit in the interpretation of literary texts. This article aims at identifying specifically the social deixis mostly used by the mother figures Clara Copperfield, Clara Peggotty and Miss Betsey in Charles Dickens’ novel “David Copperfield” and how they determine mothers’ roles in relation to David’s life from early childhood. The data involve three extracts selected from three chapters of the novel. Based on Fillmore’s (1975) and Levinson’s (1983) models of social deictic expressions, a mixed method approach in conducted. The article concluded that David Copperfield used basically the family social deixis to represent the three mother figures (Clara Copperfield, Clara Peggotty and Miss Betsey) stating clearly that mother roles such as loving, caring and nurturing are not necessary to be performed by the biological mother.
Citation: Farah Abdul-Jabbar Al Manaseer & Aysar Basheer Hasan Radhi (2022) Mother Figures in Charles Dickens’ Novel “David Copperfield”: A Pragma-Discoursal Analysis of Social Deixis, European Journal of English Language and Literature Studies, Vol.10, No.5, pp. 24-35
Keywords: Discourse Analysis, Motherhood, Pragmatics, fictional autobiography social deixis, mother figures
A Cross-Linguistic Study of the English Prepositions up and down and Their Russian Counterparts (Published)
During the recent decades an increasing interest has been observed in pragmatic studies, particularly in the field of comparative linguistics. The object of our study is space prepositions up and down in English and their counterparts in Russian. We have chosen these prepositions because they present a certain difficulty for foreign learners, especially Russian students of English. Firstly, the prepositions up and down do not have direct equivalents in Russian. Secondly, their usage on the syntagmatic level is overloaded with deixis, which makes their understanding and interpretation still more complicated. We have examined these linguistic units in the framework of theory of oppositions and pragmatics, particularly deixis. The analysis shows that on the syntagmatic level the prepositions up and down display various pragmatic meanings triggered by the reference of motion to the location of the speaker or other subject in space. Both these prepositions are rendered into Russian by means of the preposition po (along) which is deictically-neutral and therefore special means are required to express the meanings of the English prepositions both on the paradigmatic and syntagmatic level.
Keywords: Deixis, Paradigmatic, Pragmatics, Syntagmatic, prepositions up and down, theory of oppositions