Deception in Crime Fiction: A Pragma-Stylistic Analysis

ISBN-13: 9786204736341 / Angielski / Miękka / 320 str.

Safaa K. Merzah; Nawal F. Abbas

Opis

This study focuses on the deceptive strategies utilized in two well-known novels: Christie's (1926/2009) detective fiction The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Flynn's (2012) psychological thriller Gone Girl. The study of the stylistic idiosyncrasies of Flynn's Amy, the psychopathic antagonist, and Christie's Dr. Sheppard, the nonpsychopathic antagonist, is carried out through a pragma-stylistic eclectic model to explicate their deceptive strategies for the fulfillment of their egoistic ends. The qualitative analysis shows that Amy and Dr. Sheppard are expert metapragmaticians; while Amy is a serial liar who employs a plethora of direct deceptive strategies, Dr. Sheppard is a deceiver who principally relies on indirect strategies to inculcate false beliefs in the narratee, as he is cognizant of the power of what is insinuated but left unsaid. The deceptive strategies that are exploited on the two levels of fictional discourse and the two-stage novel structure are neither quantitively nor qualitatively mirror-symmetrical. It is also found that the fashion via which Amy and Dr. Sheppard deceive exhibits linguistic gender differences.

O autorze

K. Merzah, SafaaSafaa K. Merzah is an assistant lecturer of English language and linguistics. She earned her M.Ed degree in 2021 from the University of Baghdad, College of Education for Women. Her areas of interest are stylistics, pragmatics, critical linguistics, cognitive science, forensic linguistics, software engineering, and computer science.