25Oct 2017

JUSTIFICATION, EXCUSE AND EXPLANATION: A PRAGMATIC PERSPECTIVE.

  • University of Babylon, College of Education- Human Sciences, Dept. of English
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Justification and excuse are interrelated speech acts which have much in common in the sense that their purposes often interfere and that only contextual clues make it possible to distinguish one from the other. Nevertheless, in justification, the speaker acknowledges that an offence has occurred and accepts some accountability for it, whereas in excuse, he does not deny his partaking in the offence, but free himself from the responsibility by mentioning external elements without which the offence would not have taken place. Additionally, justification bears a close resemblance to the speech act of explanation to the extent that it is termed as explanation?s close cousin. The latter?s function is to make clear or tell why a state of affairs exists. The present paper attempts to investigate the relationship between these three acts detecting their similarities and enhancing their differences.

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[Hameed Hassoon and Mariam D. Saffah. (2017); JUSTIFICATION, EXCUSE AND EXPLANATION: A PRAGMATIC PERSPECTIVE. Int. J. of Adv. Res. 5 (Oct). 1426-1433] (ISSN 2320-5407). www.journalijar.com

Mariam D. Saffah
University of Babylon College of Education- Human Sciences

DOI:

Article DOI: 10.21474/IJAR01/5662      
DOI URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.21474/IJAR01/5662

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