A Pragmatic Study of Teasing in Selected American TV Shows
Author name:
اكرم ناظم رحيم السلامي
Supervisor name:
عباس ديكان درويش
General topic:
Foreign Languages
Specific topic:
English - Language
Degree:
Doctorate
University:
University of Babylon - College Of Education For Human Sciences - Department Of English Language
Language:
English
University location:
Babylon
First pages:
06T1068 - p.pdf
Abstract:
This study addresses the pragmatic investigation of teasing in the genre of TV shows. As such, it focuses on tackling teasing in situations taken from some American TV shows. The reason behind selecting this topic is that, to the best of the researcher's knowledge, the previous studies have not investigated teasing thoroughly in the genre of TV shows especially among the Iraqi academic research community. As far as the utilization of teasing in the selected "American TV shows" is concerned, the current study aims at : (1) explicating the criteria by which we can differentiate teasing from the related types of interactional attitudes; (2) identifying the pragmatic structure of teasing in the data under analysis; (3) highlighting the triggers of teasing and the forms which they take; (4) unfolding the contextualization cues that are used by teasers to accompany their teasing; (5) revealing the types of teasing that are utilized by the participants in the selected data; (6) finding out the pragma - rhetorical strategies of teasing; (7) highlighting the pragma - linguistic strategies of teasing that are utilized in the selected TV shows; (8) revealing the functions of teasing in terms of the affilaitive and disafiliative functions; (9) identifying the evaluative criteria that the targets use in their evaluation of the context of teasing; (10) explicating the conversational strategies that are used by targets in building up their response work in terms of the utilization of the conversational strategies namely, the defensive and offensive strategies; (11) developing an eclectic model for analyzing teasing in the selected data.In concordance with the above mentioned aims, the following hypotheses are put forward regarding the utilization of teasing in theviigenre of TV shows : (1) teasing is a pragmatically structured process which extends over three identifiable stages; (2) mocking is the most common trigger of teasing; (3) bonding nip is the most common form of teasing in the selected American TV shows; (4) Laugh is the most common contextualization cue used by teasers in the selected data; (5) jocular mockery is the most common type of teasing in the selected data; (6) jocularity is the most common pragma - rhetorical strategy employed by teasers in the selected TV shows; (7) Off - record impoliteness is the most common pragma - linguistic strategy utilized by teasers in the in the selected TV shows; (8) the disaffiliative functions are the most common functions of teasing achieved by teasers in the selected TV shows; (9) excuse and justification are the most common defensive strategies in the selected TV shows; (10) proactive work and counter attack are the most common offensive strategies in the selected TV shows; (11) the frequency of utilizing the offensive strategies exceeds that of the defensive ones in the selected shows.To fulfill the aims of this study as well as the validity of its hypotheses, the following procedures are adopted : (1) surveying the literature relevant to the pragmatic phenomenon of teasing which includes politeness, impoliteness, and irony to highlight its forms, types, strategies, and functions; (2) collecting and describing the data related to the genre under study; (3) conducting a pragmatic analysis of teasing by means of the model developed by this study for this purpose; (4) conducting a statistical analysis to quantitatively support the findings of the pragmatic analysis and verify or refute the hypotheses of the study; (5) discussing the findings of data analysis.This study is divided into six chapters. Chapter One presents the problem, aims, hypotheses, procedures, limits and value of the study. Chapter Two introduces a literature review concerning the theoretical background of teasing including the definitions, pragmatic nature of teasing, teasing and other pragmatic theories, namely politeness and impoliteness, types, and functions. Chapter Three presents the pragmatic strategies of teasing that are utilized in using the different types of teasing. Chapter Four introduces the eclectic model developed for teasing which is based on reviewing the previous models. Chapter Five is devoted to the practical part of the study in that it puts forward the collection, description, as well as the pragmatic and statistical analyses in terms of the findings and results of data analysis. Chapter Six sums up the main conclusions of the study, recommendations, and suggestions for future research work. The findings of the analysis signposts the confirmation of the first, second, fourth, fifth, seventh, ninth, tenth, and eleventh hypotheses, and the refutation of the third, sixth, and eighth hypotheses.
