Sarcasm in selected modern short stories : a pragmatic analysis

Abstract EN

There is no doubt that 'Impoliteness theory' has been given much attention by many linguists, and recently there has been an increasing amount of literature in this field.

Culpeper is a pioneer linguist who extensively investigates the concept of impoliteness, in his impoliteness theory; he relies on Brown and Levinson's Politeness Theory, in accordance with Goffman's concept of face.

Culpeper has referred to a number of impoliteness superstrategies.

The present study is on 'sarcasm' super strategy.

Sarcasm was not given much attention by linguists.

It was imbedded under different labels, it was merged within Brown and Levinson's off-record politeness.

This study aims to review ' Impoliteness Theory' with reference to Brown and Levinson's conception of 'face'.

Besides, it investigates the concept of sarcasm as one of impoliteness superstrategies.

The study also refers to some concepts that are used interchangeably with sarcasm, but differs in certain points.

The study adopts Jonathan Culpeper's theory of impoliteness, for its importance in distinguishing sarcasm as being an independent superstrategy and not imbedded within another label.

The data for analyses are chosen from different modern short stories.

The pragmatic analyses of the data shows that sarcasm intersects with certain labels but at the same time has its own features that make it differs from these labels.

Moreover, sheds the light on a number of elements that assist in raising any sarcastic utterance.