Pragmatic Functions of English and Arabic Connectives in Selected Novels

Abstract

This paper contains a contrastive study that reveals connectives from syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and discourse analytic perspectives to cover the whole levels and to provide a good deal of information about them. The study then confines to the analysis of the pragmatic functions of these connectives in two novels; an English one by John Steinbeck (East of Eden) and an Arabic one by Naguib Mahfouz (Palace of Desire) [qaṣr ãl shawq].

The study focuses on connectives, their classifications and functions and sheds light on the notion of connectives from four different levels; syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and discourse analytic in English and Arabic. Data is analyzed according to Dijk’s (1979) 'pragmatic connectives' as a model.

The study proves the following: (1) English and Arabic connectives differ from one level to another except for the syntactic and discourse analytic levels. (2) Connectives in English and Arabic have pragmatic functions, not just semantic lexical meanings. (3) The English and Arabic novels show similarities in the use of ‘and’ where its pragmatic functions are found excessively in both novels. (4) There are certain dissimilarities in the use of connectives in English and Arabic novels, as far as their pragmatic functions are concerned.