A Pragmatic Discourse Analysis of Speech Acts in Mark Twain’s Short Story "Journalism in Tennessee"

Abstract

        This paper is a pragmatic discourse analysis of speech acts that are  performed by major characters in the short story “ Journalism in Tennessee “ by Mark Twain.  This paper deals with the theory of speech act and the issue of indirectness in English.It sums up and comments on theoretical definitions and assumptions concerning the theory of speech act given by some linguists and language philosophers.Speech act theory is a theory of action.It is concerned with the ways in which words can be used not only to give information but also to carry out actions.The primary theory used in this study is searle’s (1969) model of speech act.The study shows that Twain’s use of speech acts adds depth and comedic effect to the story .