The Speech Act Theory in English and Arabic

Fareed Hameed Al-Hindawi, Hameed Hasoon Al-Masu’di, Ramia Fua’d Mirza

English Department, College of Education for Human Sciences, University of Babylon, Babylon, Iraq.
English Department, Faculty of Arts, University of Kufa, Najaf, Iraq.

DOI: 10.4236/ojml.2014.41003                

Abstract

This paper is mainly concerned with proving that it is not Wittgenstein, the German philosopher, who actually seeded the main gist of the Speech Act Theory; there are others who preceded him (and all those who followed him, the first of whom is Austin) in doing so: Arab scholars. Accordingly, this work starts by reviewing the most basic ideas of the original theory proposed by Austin and developed by Searle. The basic ideas presented by the Arabic theory are presented in the second section, and then a contrast between the two is made.

Keywords

Austin; Searle; As-Sakkaki; Al-Jurjani; Constatives and Performatives According to Najaf School of Jurisprudents

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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