Pragmatic Purposes in Contemporary Omani Politics

Abstract

This research aims to provide answers to several questions, the most important of which are:

- Are there communicative features that distinguished the speeches delivered by Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the former Sultan of Oman, such that they can be divided into stages based on those features?

- What is the relationship between speech acts and the features of each stage of these speeches?

- What are the most prominent purposes that speech acts served to achieve in the linguistic content of the speeches?

The research relied on a descriptive approach based on the statistical aspect of the research sample, extracting the most important purposes that speech acts served to achieve by studying language in its political, social, and cultural contexts. The research concluded that the speech purposes contained in the sample's speeches can be approached in four stages:

1. Stage: The stage of establishing security, unifying Oman, and establishing the foundations for the modern state, extending over the period (1970-1979).

2- The stage of construction and development, extending from 1980 to 1995.

3- The stage of issuing the Basic Law of the State, extending from 1996 to 2010.

4- The stage of expanding legislative and oversight powers and strengthening the state of institutions and the law, extending from 2011 to 2015.

After analysis, the research reached a number of conclusions, the most prominent of which are:

- Speech acts varied according to the intended objectives at each stage of Omani politics, as presented in the sample stages.

- There was harmony between the pragmatic dimension of the speeches and the context in which they were delivered.

- Each stage was characterized by purposive objectives, which the speaker was keen to achieve successfully through linguistic methods, employing speech acts.

- The sample reflected the speaker's experience and knowledge of the psychological and cultural aspects of the addressee, as reflected in the speech acts in the speeches.

It is hoped that this research will open up new avenues for studying indirect speech acts in political speeches, explore the relationship between speeches and the contexts that produced them, and examine the pragmatic role of language in achieving real-world objectives.