Contrastive Analyses of Two Texts in Pragmatics in Different Languages

In this study two texts are analized according to the pragamtics. Both texts are news articles about Saddam Hussein Being Captured. The Turkish article is taken from Milliyet Newspaper and the English article was taken from The Times which is a British newspaper. The contrastive analysis will be applied in this work and the differnces and the similarities will be given in the end.

Discourse Analyses and Pragmatics

Discourse analysis and pragmatics both accept sentences as vehicles to the human communication. Thus conservations and texs are treated as collection of sentences. The pragmatic viewpoint makes an addtiion to this by accepting liguistic activity as both producing and consuming language as all other human activities.

The pragmatic component of discourse is the application of the pragmatic theory to the theory to the theory of discourse as communicative action.

As the chosen articles are taken from the newspapers. The type of discourse which will be studied is news discourse. In the news discourse lots of different texts can be studied like news comment, interviews, breking news etc.

Genre is one of the semiotic stuctures and they are conventionalized forms of language in use. News report in English which is about Saddam’s being captured is a genre.

· “Deposed tyrant sneered as he met Iraq’s new leaders last night, reports James Hider.” İn this sentence the word reports is a lexical item that is characteristics or a news report.

To express the past events the Simple tense was used and in some parts the news goes back and gives information about the past events then the tense becomes the past perfect tense.

· ... when four members of the Iraqı Governing Council(IGC) arrived to identify him.

It is a news report that tells the story of capturing Saddam Hussein. It is content – based. The article gives information about how Saddam was captured and what his reaction was.

The article was written to be read reflectively. It’s non-spontenous in order not to distract the readers’ attention.

Tenor of discourse has an important place for the text because it regulates the relationship between the adresser and the adressee. The news report is formal and the language use is daily language.

Functional tenor is to specify what language is being used for in the situation. The news report tries to inform the reader about the situation. In this text the text producer, writer, is the informer.

The intention of the text is to tell the story of Saddam’s being captured wtih spesific time,place and people.

In terms of text typology, the text is narrative dealing with an event also this text belongs to the non-fictional text-form.

The text is a news report that is about politics. It is also informative that focuses on real life matters.

The text is objective as it directly gives the first information to the reader. It is non – fictional.

As it was mentioned above genre is a news report. The lexical and structural items show the characteristics of a news report.

In the news report the speech act theory and the levels can change according to the receiver’s perception and the writers intention.

“Saddam Captured” is the title of the report and the aim is to inform the reader and this title is the locutionary act. In the following two paragraphes the illocutionary act takes place the writer gives information about Saddam but the words that he uses to express him can be understood in a different way according to the readers social and cultural status. The word “deposed tyrant” can be critisized by some of the readers while the others can think he deserves it. As it is a news report the perlocutionary act will be restricted but the sentences of Saddam himself can take place in perlocutionary act. When he was asked about the al – Sadr he answered the question as “ Ach, you are asking me about the chest why not ask me about the legs too?” the reader can infer that Saddam did not want to answer the question and also the men in the report.

NEWS DISCOURSE

SUMMARY STORY

HEADLINE LEAD SITUATION COMMENTS
‘ Saddam Deposed tyrant
Captured’ sneered as he EPISODE BACKGROUND VERBAL REACTION CONCLUSIONS
met Iraq’s new -Saddam asked “Are you
leaders last night, MAIN EVENTS CONSEQUENCES CONTEXT HISTORY going to be the new ruler?”
reports James Saddam’s situation - IGC come and -1991 invasion - Mr.Chalabi said he was EXPECTATIONS EVALUATION
Hider when and how he identify him. of Kuwait -1988 an evil man drained of The trial of The deposed
was caught. - He was arrested he killed Kurds his honor. Saddam. tyrant was
and interrogated with chemical. – IGC member “ our being held
. weapons –1999 answer was that with the other
he killed he was an unjust leaders of
opposition. ruler.” Saddam’s
CIRCUMSTANCES PREVIOUS - Another member said regime.
Saddam was dirty EVENTS Saddam would be
He was being held American tried publicly to allow
in a room lift by 14ft troops had Iraqis to hear the
with a bed, chairs dragged “catalogue of crimes
and a desk Saddam. he commited.”
He killed hundreds.

The genre of this text is news report in Turkish. The genre includes two items that show the text has the characteristics of its genre.

These items are tenses etc. in a news report. The simple past is used to tell the story of the report.

The news report is objective and gives general information about the event. It is written to be read.

The news report language is formal while the comments take place in the report is informal. The language easy to understand.

The intention of the news report is to tell the story and enlight the reader about the event.

The news report is a narrative non – fictional text form which all take place in exposition.

The news report is informative about real life event. It is also content – based as it was mentioned before.

Genre is the news report. The lexical and structural items show the news characteristics in the text. Discourse is news discourse and the text entity is exposition.

In the first three paragraph locutionary act is seen. This part gives information directly. In general mostly locutionary act is used in the text. In some parts reader can encounter illocutionary act. For example the title “ İbret Dolu Final” can be understood in different meanings may be other leaders should be careful or the ones who support Saddam should give up etc.

NEWS DISCOURSE

SUMMARY STORY

HEADLINE LEAD SITUATION COMMENTS
İbret Dolu Irak’ın devrik
Final diktatörü Saddam’ın EPISODE BACKGROUND VERBAL REACTION CONCLUSIONS
Kaçış öyküsü önceki - Mustafa Alani Araplar
Akşam Tikrit MAIN EVENTS CONSEQUENCES CONTEXT HISTORY ve Iraklı mücahitler direnişe
yakınlarında Saddam bir baskınla - kimliği tespit -Toplu mezarlara devam edeceklerdir. EXPECTATIONS EVALUATION
gizlendiği bir yakalandı. edildi, sorgulandı gömülen Iraklılar - Toby Dodge Amerika Direniş sürebilir. Saddam’ın yurt
delikte son - Direniş tamamen geri çekilmemelidir. dışına çıkarılmadığı
buldu. zayıflamayacaktır. - Sir Timothy Garden kesinleşti.
. moral artacak
- Abdul Monem Said
PREVIOUS Amerika için bir zafer
CIRCUMSTANCES EVENTS oldu. Araplar için
Saddam bitkin ve - Bağdat’ın değişen bir şey olmadı.
çaresizdi. düştüğü
yanında tabanca - 9 Nisan’dan
vardı ama direnmedi. beri kaçak ...
- 7 aydır tutuklu
Tarık Aziz

III. RESULTS OF THE ANALYSIS

In this study two news reports in different languages are taken as an example. After they are analized according to the pragmatics some results can be given as below:

Þ Structurally and lexically both texts show their genre. The reader can understand it easily.

Þ The two texts which are in different languages show some similarities field, mode and tenor of discourse are almost the same as they are objective, informative and easy to understand.

Þ Structurally and functionally the texts narrative and non – fictional the event isn’t given like a novel or poem the sentences are specific and the subject is certain.

Þ Both texts are suitable to the news discourse and also the quantity is almost the same. The texts have the same characteristics in discourse.

Þ Lastly according to the speech act theory mostly locutionary act is used as the main purpose is to give information to the reader about the subject. The other acts are used in a restricted way.

In this study two texts are analized according to the pragmatics. The two texts have the same characteristics. The discourse analysis is also has some similarities. Although the two texts are in different languages they share the same purpose and as a result they have the same intention. The relation between adressee and the adresser is connected by the help of the text itself.

INTRODUCTION

Discourse Analyses and Pragmatics