Goddard, Cliff (2002). Directive speech acts in Malay (Bahasa Melayu): An ethnopragmatic perspective. Cahiers de praxématique, 38, 113-143.
The focus of the present study is the semantics and ethnopragmatics of a set of Malay speech act verbs. I hope to demonstrate that the lexical-semantic and cultural-pragmatic aspects of the analysis are mutually reinforcing and mutually informative. On the basis of cultural-pragmatic facts, I will discount polysemy for ajak ‘encourage, urge’ and pujuk ‘coax, comfort’, while lexical-semantic analysis of suruh ‘tell to do’ and minta ‘ask for’ will highlight the Malay cultural constraints against explicitly expressing the message ‘I want you to do this’. The conceptual structure and presuppositions of nasihat ‘advice, counsel’ will be shown to be strongly congruent with its characteristic forms of expression. In these and other ways, I hope to show not only that lexical semantics and cultural pragmatics are tightly intertwined in Malay, but also to illustrate the value of an ethnopragmatic approach to speech acts in general.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
