A socio-pragmatic comparative study of

TABLE OF CONTENTS 
Page
Approval ii
Dedication iii
Acknowledgements iv
Table of contents 
v
List of figures
viii
Abstract ix
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 
1.0. Preliminaries 
1
1.1. Purpose of the study 
7 
1.2. Significance of the study 
8
1.3. Scope of the study 
9
1.4. Outline of the study 
10
CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATURE 
2.0. Introduction 
12
2.1. Structuralism 
12
2.2. Generativism 
13
2.3. Transition from structuralism to contextualism 
14
2.4. The birth of sociolinguistics 
15
2.5. Communicative competence 
16
2.6. Form, meaning, and function 
17
2.7. Context 
17
2.8. Pragmatics 
18
2.9. Pragmatic failure 
20
2.9.1. Pragmalinguistic failure 
21
2.9.2. Sociopragmatic failure 
21
2.10. Speech acts 
22

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2.10.1. J. L. Austin 
22
2.10.2. J. R. Searle 
24
2.11. Speech act theory 
24
2.12. Approaches to the study of conversation 
26
2.12.1. Discourse analysis 
27
2.12.2. Conversation(al) analysis 
27
2.13. Conversational principles 
28
2.13.1. The cooperative principle 
29
2.13.2. The politeness principle 
31
2.14. The notion of face 
32
2.15. Studies on invitations 
33
2.16. Studies on ostensible invitations 
37
2.16.1. Study one: ambiguous invitations 
37
2.16.2. Study two: ostensible invitations 
38
2.17. Final remark 
43
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY 
3.0. Introduction 
44
3.1. Terms and concepts 
44
3.2. Subjects 
46
3.3. Materials 
46
3.4. Methods and data 
47
3.5. Data analysis 
48