A pragmatic analysis of bapsi sidhwa’s “ice candy man” in accordance with searle’s theory of speech act
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Date
2022
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UMT.Lahore
Abstract
Language is a communication tool for people. People do not only communicate with language but also perform actions via utterances. The study mainly aims to evaluate the significance of speech acts in Bapsi Sidhwa’s “Ice Candy Man” novel. Specifically, the objectives of this study are to analyze the characters’ utterances from the perspective of speech act theory to explore what kinds of speech acts are used to depict the theme of partition and patriarchy. This study adopted Searle’s (1969) Speech act theory and used a mixed-methods approach that employed both qualitative and quantitative methods. After qualitative and quantitative investigation of the characters’ utterances, the findings showed that four out of the total five kinds of speech acts are used by the characters to depict the theme of partition and patriarchy. They are Representative, Expressive, Commissive, and Directive. Declarative speech acts are not found in the novel. Most of the characters used representative acts to express the theme of partition and patriarchy. Representative acts have the highest frequency of occurrences, with 42 data representing 41.5%. Expressive speech acts with 36 utterances representing 35.6%, Directive speech acts with 19 utterances representing 18.8%, and Commissive speech acts with 4 utterances representing 3.9%. The results of speech acts analysis are presented such that they can improve the knowledge of readers about pragmatics study, especially how to examine a text using Searle's speech act theory.