A pragmatic study of rhetorical : questions in Shakespeare’s twelfth night and hamlet

الملخص EN

This paper is an attempt to study rhetorical questions (RQs) in Shakespeare‖s Twelfth Night and Hamlet.

The study is hoped to achieve the following aims : (1) investigating the numbers, employments and the functions of RQs in the two plays ; (2) showing the most common pragmatic functions of RQs from both Speech Act and Argumentation points of view ; (3) examining the influence of context on the pragmatic interpretations of RQs ; and (4) displaying how one function is used for different literary purposes in these plays.

To achieve these aims, it is hypothesized that : (1) RQs are used more often in Hamlet than in Twelfth Night for different employments and functions ; (2) from Speech Acts point of view, rebuke is the most common function, whereas from the Argumentation point of view, fallacy of argument appeal to personal involvement is the most common one ; (3) pragmatic functions of RQs in the plays vary according to their contexts ; (4) one function is used for different literary purposes in the plays.

To test the validity of these hypotheses, certain procedures have been followed : (1) surveying the relevant literature on RQs from the pragmatic perspective ; (2) finding out a model for the analysis of the selected texts ; and (3) analyzing the RQs in the literary texts under investigation.

The findings of this investigation have proved the validity of the above hypotheses.

The study falls into five sections.

Section One introduces the problem, aims, hypotheses, procedures and limits of the study.

Section Two is devoted to the theoretical framework of RQs from Speech Acts point of view, whereas Section Three is devoted to the theoretical framework of RQs from Argumentation point of view.

Section Four presents the model of analysis followed by the practical analysis of RQs.

Section Five sums up the conclusions arrived at.