Speech Acts and Communicative Strategies in Military Literary Discourse: A Comparative Pragmatic Analysis of English and Uzbek
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/Keywords:
speech act, military literary discourse, communicative strategy, directive, pragmatics, politeness, English, Uzbek, comparative analysis.Abstract
This article examines speech acts and communicative strategies in English and Uzbek military literary discourse from a comparative pragmatic perspective. Military literary discourse represents a complex form of communication in which institutional hierarchy, operational necessity, personal emotion, moral responsibility and national identity interact. The study is based on the theoretical principles of speech act theory, politeness theory, discourse analysis and cross-cultural pragmatics. Selected dialogue situations from English and Uzbek war prose are analyzed according to their illocutionary force, linguistic realization, contextual function and anticipated perlocutionary effect. The findings indicate that directives occupy a central position in both English and Uzbek military literary discourse because commands, warnings, instructions and prohibitions organize military action and reflect power relations. However, assertives, commissives, expressives and declaratives also contribute to the representation of military experience. English military dialogue frequently relies on concise imperatives, modal constructions, institutional vocabulary and strategically controlled emotional expression. Uzbek military dialogue demonstrates comparable functional directness but more visibly employs verbal suffixes, respectful imperative forms, forms of address, collective pronouns and culturally marked expressions of solidarity. The analysis identifies authority, mitigation, persuasion, solidarity, emotional restraint, strategic ambiguity and identity construction as major communicative strategies. The article concludes that the two traditions share common institutional functions while differing in the linguistic and cultural resources used to realize them.
References
1. Abdusalomov, F. A. (2025). Sociolinguistic features of the imperative mood in English and Uzbek military discourse. PhD dissertation abstract. Tashkent: Uzbekistan State World Languages University.
2. Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
3. Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
4. Culpeper, J. (2011). Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
5. Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.
6. Halbe, D. (2011). Language in the military workplace: Between hierarchy and politeness. Text & Talk, 31(3), 315–334.
7. Hemingway, E. (1929). A Farewell to Arms. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
8. Hoshimov, O‘. (1986). Ikki eshik orasi. Tashkent.
9. Leech, G. N. (2014). The Pragmatics of Politeness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
10. Mey, J. L. (2001). Pragmatics: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell.
11. O’Brien, T. (1990). The Things They Carried. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
12. Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
13. Searle, J. R. (1979). Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
14. Shuhrat. (1958). Shinelli yillar. Tashkent.
15. Trosborg, A. (1995). Interlanguage Pragmatics: Requests, Complaints and Apologies. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
16. Van Dijk, T. A. (Ed.). (1997). Discourse as Social Interaction. London: Sage Publications.