Speech Act Analysis in Conversation With Reference to English – Arabic Translation
Abstract
Much ink has been spilt on the notion of conversation; yet, it has not been settled. This means that its definition is still controversial. Wittgenstein (1968: 30), for instance, points out that "to speak a language is to engage in a conversation and other activities interwoven with previous forms of life. " This means that the speakers and hearers of a language would not understand each other in many cases if they were not sharing the same relevant forms of life and information about the background of their utterance. This is why many actual special modes of achievement and propositional content or preparatory conditions in English, French, and German, which serve important purposes in our modern societies, are not linguistically significant for closed linguistic societies living at an earlier historical state or advanced or under a totally different natural environment (Beun, 1989: 50, 2002: 140 and 2004: 93).