Footing and Speech Acts in the Qurʼanic Dialogue of Allah and Iblīs: A Pragmatically Enhanced Approach

This study seeks to examine the interface potentially holding between footing and the speech acts performed in the main Qurʼanic dialogue of Allah and Iblīs (Q15:32-43). The study utilizes a synthetic approach that combines two theoretical strands: (i) Erving Goffman’s (1979, 1981) interaction model of footing as orchestrated by the speaker roles of animator, author, and principal; (ii) Searle’s (1976) classification scheme of illocutionary acts and their felicity conditions. Crucially, the pragmatically enhanced footing analysis of the Qurʼanic speech event that binds Allah and Iblīs has demonstrated how the two participants perform illocutionary acts that determine their theologically felicitous speaker roles as animator, author, and/or principal. Five categories of illocutionary acts have been identified in the overall participation framework of the dialogue: expressives, directives, declarations, representatives, and commissives. Based on these categories, both Allah and Iblīs have performed acts as authors, whose utterances are animated via the reportorial style of the Qurʼanic text; further, the perlocutions of certain acts have manifested the discursive positions of each participant in a way that reflects his manipulating speaker role in the speech event.

Entirely innocent: a historical sociopragmatic analysis of maximizers in the Old Bailey Corpus

Based on an investigation of the Old Bailey Corpus, this article explores the development and usage patterns of maximizers in Late Modern English (LModE). The maximizers to be considered for inclusion in the study are based on the lists provided in Quirk et al. (1985) and Huddleston & Pullum (2002). The aims of the study were to (i) document the frequency development of maximizers, (ii) investigate the sociolinguistic embedding of maximizers usage (gender, class) and (iii) analyze the sociopragmatics of maximizers based on the speakers’ roles, such as judge or witness, in the courtroom.Of the eleven maximizer types focused on in the investigation, perfectly and entirely were found to dominate in frequency. The whole group was found to rise over the period 1720 to 1913. In terms of gender, social class and speaker roles, there was variation in the use of maximizers across the different speaker groups. Prominently, defendants, but also judges and lawyers, maximized more than witnesses and victims; further, male speakers and higher-ranking speakers used more maximizers. The results were interpreted taking into account the courtroom context and its dialogue dynamics.