A Socio-Pragmatic Analysis of Lamentation in Selected Elegies of Gray and AL-Khansaa'

Abstract

This research is an attempt to explore a social and pragmatic phenomenon of lamentation in elegies of Gray and AL-Khansaa' who represent two different cultures. It illustrates the intended meaning of lamentation in English and Arabic and finds how the two languages express this purpose of poetry by analysing it socio-pragmatically adopting Searle's models (1969),and its modifications. Lamentation is considered as a mournful poem lamenting the death of  whole humanity as Gray's elegy and of an individual as AL-Khansaa's elegy. So, Gray portrays a universal picture concerning his lamentation, while AL-Khansaa' portrays an individual and subjective picture regarding her lamentation. As  branches of linguistics, sociolinguistics deals with the relationship between language and society, and pragmatics deals with the language in use and shows the intended meaning of the words. On these bases, the main aim of sociolinguistics and pragmatics is to observe the intended expressive lamenting meaning in English and Arabic societies(cultures).