Proverbial rhetorical questions in colloquial Jordanian Arabic

• Autores: Muhammad Badarneh
• Localización: Folia lingüística: Acta Societatis Linguisticae Europaeae, ISSN-e 1614-7308, ISSN 0165-4004, Vol. 50, Nº 1, 2016, págs. 207-242
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • This study investigates a special variety of rhetorical questions in colloquial Jordanian Arabic, namely proverbial rhetorical questions: these are rhetorical questions used as proverbs with metaphorical content. Eighty-one instances of PRQs, ethnographically observed in everyday, naturally occurring conversations, were analyzed and their discursive role examined. It was found that PRQs are exploited by the interactants to serve a variety of pragmatic functions, namely invoking common ground in order to convey an opposite point of view, performing ritual impoliteness, performing face-enhancing and face-aggravating acts, evoking humor, and communicating irony. A common thread of these functions is the socioculturally shared presuppositions that underlie these formulaic PRQs and the role that metaphor plays in shaping and communicating messages in social interaction.