Discourse Structures of Condolence Speech Act

Condolence is part of Austin’s expressive speech act and is related to Searle’s behabitives illocutionary act. Although a theoretically sound issue in pragmatics, condolence speech act has not been investigated as much as other speech acts in discourse-related studies. This paper aims at investigating interjections and intensifiers while performing condolence speech act among Persian and English speakers. Movie analysis was utilized to gather information about how native speakers used interjections and intensifiers while performing condolence speech act. Of particular interest was the use of repetition, multiple intensifiers, implicit intensifiers, expressing explicit concern for the bereaved, and using adjectival intensifiers. The results of the Chi-square revealed that: a) there was a significant difference among intensifiers and interjections in each culture; b) interjections and intensifiers can be organized semantically; and (c) the nature of English and Persian intensifiers is syntactically different. To link theory into practice, pedagogical implications are discussed in the context of EFL.