A Pragmatic Study of Speech Acts in the Novel “Jazz” by Toni Morrison

Abstract

Abstract The current thesis attempts to shed light on the possible applications of pragmatics in the study of literary texts. It reveals the effective role of pragmatics in analyzing a piece of literary work, i.e., Toni Morrison’s Jazz. Toni Morrison is an African American novelist who was born in Lorain, Ohio, U.S.A in 1931. Morrison is one of the world most recognizable female authors of the last century. She grew up in a family of musicians and storytellers. She was the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Pulitzer Prize and many other awards. She published many novels; one of them was Jazz that published in 1992. First, the study explores various types of Speech Acts. Second, it examines how these types affect certain meanings in Jazz as a literary discourse. Third, it explores how structure, themes, symbolism and identity affect the aesthetic or the poetic narratology of setting, characters, psyche, polyphonic structure and music. To achieve its objectives, the thesis is divided into an introduction, three chapters and a conclusion followed by a list of references.