John Millington Synge's riders to the sea : a pragmatic analysis

Abstract EN

This research deals with the analysis of the literary text in the light of the Brown & Levinson's (987) Theory of Politeness.

It identifies the FTAS (On-record and Positive Politeness strategies) which structure the discourse of Synge's play Riders to the Sea (1904).

It also investigates their role in the interpretation of the characters' speech situations which are mainly used to highlight the main theme in play.

Politeness strategies in Riders to The Sea: The research deals with the pragmatic analysis of the main theme of the play, namely the theme of appearance and reality, in Synge's Riders to The Sea (hence after RS).

It deals with the dialogues of the main characters in the play; Maurya (Maur) the old mother, her two daughters: Cathleen(Cath) and Nora, and her son Bartley(Bart) as speech situations in order to trace the development of the main theme in the play.

The analysis focuses mainly on analyzing the politeness strategies used by each character in relation to the main character-Maur- throughout the three stages of the play.

The aim of this is to present a sufficient analysis of Maur-Children relationship in terms of Brown and Levinson's (1987) major politeness strategies Bald – on record (BOR) and Positive Politeness (PP) and their sub-strategies.

Before getting to the analysis of Maur-Children conversations, one has to begin with a brief account of Maur's story, which functions as the background knowledge (the context) for the selected speech situations under investigation in this section.

Maurya, the old mother, is the central character in Synge's play Riders to the Sea, the mother who sacrifices her husband and her sons to the sea because, for her, the sea symbolizes eternity.

Although she believes deeply in the idea, Maur tries to stop her last son Bart from sailing to Connemara to sell the two horses they own at the Galway fair, but the son insists on going.

Bart goes against Maur's will and as a result she refuses to give him her blessing.

Maur sees a vision of her drowned son Michael sitting upon the grey pony which she considers a message from Heaven for her as a sign of Bart 's death.

Here, as Abousenna, (2010) argues "realism is used as a means to confirm myth.

The real reason is seen in the light of the unreal, magic of the myth.