Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 Assistant professor of linguistics -Faculty of English Language and Literature-Yasouj university
2 M.A in General linguistics- Department of English language and literature- Faculty of Humanities- Yasouj University
3 English language and literature- Faculty of Humanities- Yasouj University
Abstract
From the perspective of pragmatics and discourse analysis, this research examines the speech acts of legal opinions. Searle divides speech acts into five types: declarative, directive, expressive, representative, and commissive. The present study aimed to investigate the types of speech acts and their frequency in divorce case judgments based on Searle's classification. The present research was conducted using a descriptive-analytical and corpus-based method. The data were randomly collected in the form of 50 judgments from the National Judicial Decisions System. The research corpus includes 1364 speech acts extracted from the text of these judgments. Then, the types of speech acts and their frequencies were identified and analyzed based on specific principles. The findings showed that the highest frequency belonged to representative speech acts with 38%, and declarative and directive speech acts were used with an almost equal frequency of 27%. The findings also indicated that the judge – who is the author of these texts – in court and judicial authorities, based on evidence, documents, and their knowledge, issues verdicts and is always in a position where they confirm their opinion with representative and declarative acts and persuade their audience to take action with directive acts.
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