A Critical Pragmatic Analysis of Direct Rebuttal in English and Arabic Novels

Abstract

This paper is primarily concerned with investigating the critical pragmatic perspective of rebuttal in Arabic and English novels. From a critical pragmatic perspective,  rebuttal has not been received enough attention. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to investigate rebuttal within the framework of the chosen model. Thus, it aims: finding out  how rebutters employ positive self presentation and negative other presentation in the selected data, tracing the strategies  that are employed to rebut someone's arguments, and shedding light on  the different types of  persuasive appeals that are utilized in the selected data to effectively rebut someone's arguments. According to the aforementioned aims, it is hypothesized that: in both English and Arabic novels, the strategies of positive – self presentation and negative other presentation are used to  rebut someone's arguments, a number of impoliteness and politeness  strategies  are employed to rebut someone's arguments, and ethos, pathos and logos are types of  persuasive appeals that are used in the selected  to effectively rebut someone's arguments. The findings of the investigation provide evidence that verifies the first, second, and third hypotheses.