Pragmatics of Ostensible Invitations in Iraqi Arabic: Function Analysis

Abstract

This paper deals with the pragmatic functions of ostensible invitations as used by Iraqi Arabic speakers. Iraqi society is known of the traditions in which pragmatic language is highly considered that Iraqi Arabic speakers use speech acts in order to pay compliments among each other. The issuance of various ostensible speech acts is to convey other purposes than those conveyed by the genuine ones. It is believed that it is vital to dig deep in the functions of the speech act of invitation as this speech act is mostly used by the Iraqi Arabic speakers in an ostensible manner. So, depending on a test formulated and administered to Iraqi Arabic speakers represented by college students, data have been collected and analyzed to show the strategies and functions used peculiarly by Iraqi Arabic speakers in addition to those stipulated by Clark and Isaac whose model is adapted in the analysis. In terms of the strategies used in addition to the seven ones mentioned in the model, new ones emerged and are believed to be peculiar to the Iraqi  Arabic speakers, for they are strongly related to the social norms of the Iraqi society. On the level of pragmatic functions, Iraqi Arabic speakers tend to use ostensible speech act of invitation for various purposes; chief among them are compliment, polite strategy, mitigation devices and others.