THE PRAGMATIC FEATURES OF GENUINE QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH

Abstract

When classified in accordance with purposes of communication, sentences in human languages can be categorized into statements, questions, commands, and exclamations. Pragmatically, questions are mult-functionally and multi-dimensionally employed at high frequency in communication. Questions are used for information seeking. Questions can be used to affect conversation partners’ emotion and thinking. Questions have convincing power. Questions can be used as a means for warnining and threatening. Questions are employable in driving interlocutors into the corner in a verbal interaction… On the basis of traditional approaches, this article is aimed at providing as meticulous as possible an account of the features of the three different types of questions pragmatically established. These are as follows:

• Pragmatic features of explicit alternative questions;
• Pragmatic features of implicit alternative questions;
• Pragmatic features of non-alternative questions.