Speech Categories in the Context of the Movie A Separation

Abstract

The study presented here was conducted to classify speech based on functional effects by using Searl’s theory of pragmatic functions. The data of the study constituted the entire conversations among the main characters of the movie called A Separation. The procedures involved first, transcribing the conversations between the characters of the movie, next, the theory of pragmatics was applied in order to categorize the data and to examine how successfully our data could be classified based on the model. The findings revealed thatutterances could be classified functionally within a framework called Searl`s five major functional classifications (1976).It was further discovered that among the five major functions, two categories were rarely used in that specific context which incorporated mostly settings with conflict. The frequency order of the three most used categories was directive, expressive, and commisive respectively. The findings of the study could have implications for communicative language teaching programs, in the sense that those categories which occur most frequently require a greater proportion of the course content.

DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2013.v3n2p237