ا. م. د. جمعة قادر حسين
Pragmatics and Literature
التداولية والادب
ا. م. د. جمعة قادر حسين
The study of the language of literature is one of the most traditional applications of linguistics. Recently, linguistic analysis of literature has been one of the most active and creative areas of literary studies. Linguistics can contribute a great deal to the reader’s appreciation of a literary text by providing the reader with a methodology through which the reader can account for the verbal structure of such texts. Linguistics may also help the reader solve problems of interpretation by showing explicitly how and why one structure is more plausible than another (Thaugott and Pratt, 1980).
The question about the relationship between linguistics and literature has always been a troublesome issue and critics have debated it for a long time. Chapman (1973) for example, provides an accurate account of this relationship stating that linguistics is concerned with language as an observable phenomenon of human activity in its general principles and in the particular realizations. Literature, on the other hand, is created, according to Chapman (1973) “from the basic material of a linguistic study and is allied to it in a way that the other arts like music and painting are not” (p.4)
Therefore, to interpret literature in terms of pragmatics is so needed. This new movement emerges under the tittle Literary Pragmatics, which deals with the pragmatics of literary writing and reading in which context realization is of a great importance (Sell 1995).
To conclude, Literary Pragmatics attempts to transfer some general principles of pragmatics to a literary context. It is not mainly concerned with linguistic interactions between the characters as portrayed in literary texts, but between the real writers as speakers of literature and their real readers or listeners.
Key words: Linguistics: Pragmatics: Literature: Literary Pragmatics:
References
Chapman, R. (1973). Linguistics and Literature: An Introduction to Literary Texts. London: Edward Arnold.
Sell, Roger (1992). “Literary Text and Diachronic Aspects of Politician” .In: R.Watts, S. Ide and K. Ehlich (eds.), Politeness in Language: Studies in Its History, Theory, and Practice. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Traugott, E. and Mary Pratt (1980). Linguistics for Students of Literature. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.