Abstract

Deceptive Roles of Women in Arabic and English Literature Context: A Pragmatic Study

Abeer Mahdi Abd-Alsahab, Prof. Dr. Sarab Khalil

Volume: 12 Issue: 3 2022

Abstract:

Usually, feminine characters are assigned different roles and spaces for expressing the self and their cultural identity through literary text. Through searching and studying the literary text, deep-rooted beliefs of life can be uncovered that highlight similarities and differences between people who are divided by regional areas, languages, and many other factors. Pragmatic tools can perceive and conceptualise many human aspects that need scientific attention. One of these aspects is the phenomenon of deception and its intricate human nature. Deception is the goal, pragmatic strategies are the mean, and the identity of deceptive women is the target of this study. The question here is how deception is viewed in literary text and specifically how insincere women are introduced in Arabic and English social novels. Consequently, the current research takes the goal of identifying the types of deception in English and Arabic novels with a special focus on female characters. For this purpose, two prominent novels are chosen: "Palace of Desire" for Naguib Mahfouz (1957) and East of Eden for John Steinbeck (1952), since they are widely read novels and have gone repeatedly through the process of materialisation in the form of movies and series. In this respect, deception strategies are divided into super, deceptive, and sub-strategies. Super strategies come from strategic Manuvering principles, while the act of deception is the result of violating one or more of Gricean maxims. Sub- strategies, on the other hand, stand for various pragmatic strategies. The results indicate that deception types in both novels are the same but authors, out of their different cultural backgrounds, prioritise different deceptive strategies. The English novel has a higher percentage of falsification. Alternatively, the Arabic novel reveals a higher percentage of concealment. This point is additionally reflected in the existence of a psychopathic character (Cathy) in the English novel and the absence of such a venomous character in the Arabic novel.

DOI: http://doi.org/10.37648/ijrssh.v12i03.024

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