A Socio-Pragmatic Study of Sympathy in the Wonder Movie

Abstract

This study investigates the influence of some social variables on the choice of sympathy in the American movie (Wonder). It particularly investigates the influence of social class, gender, age and ethnicity on the American’s choice of the appropriate strategy of sympathy. Pragmatics is the study of speaker’s meaning. Clearly, a number of aspects influence how individuals use language. People's language usage is influenced by a variety of social factors, including gender, socioeconomic class, age, particular social settings, etc. In doing a study on a language phenomenon, it is necessary to consider not just the form and function of language, but also the social factors that influence language usage. Pragmatics is the right method for observing language forms and meaning, but sociolinguistics must also be applied when differences in social contexts, socioeconomic classes, and cultures influence the language use of individuals. The current study is concerned with the investigation and analysis of sympathy in the Wonder movie. It aims at pinpointing out the forms of the speech acts used to express sympathy; identifying the politeness maxims associated with sympathy; investigating the paralinguistic acts associated with sympathy; and reveling the appropriateness of using the sympathetic acts in terms of the target social variables. The study has reached at some conclusions, among which is that the American movie writers tend to exploit representative and expressive speech acts in their effort of creating effective and moving sympathy situations; Leech’s theory of politeness has proved to be a powerful analytical method of analyzing the sympathy situations; and effective and appropriate sympathy acts are highly influenced by the surrounding social variables like age, gender, ethnicity, position, and the like, although according to different degrees.