A socio-pragmatic comparative study of

1.3. Scope of the Study 
The review of the literature shows that a large variety of social parameters and 
linguistic variables have been investigated by sociolinguists. In fact, there are a number 
of issues that have slipped the attention of sociolinguists and other scholars in the field. 
However, because a good number of social factors such as culture, ethnicity, and 
generation are not easy to process, researchers usually keep aloof from them. In other 
words, most researchers entertain themselves with the study of easy-to-handle factors 
and variables. For the same reason, the present study has limited its scope to such 
parameters as sex, age, and economical status which are readily manageable and lend 
 

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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 
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themselves to quantitative analyses. 
This study will also endeavor to contribute to the notion of language universals through 
the examination of Farsi ostensible invitations in terms of the defining properties and 
features of ostensible invitations proposed by Clark and Isaacs (1990). To this end, 
exactly the same methods of data analysis and interpretation will be employed in the 
analysis, quantification, and interpretation of the corpus. 
1.4. Outline of the Study 
In addition to the CHAPTER ONE, Introduction, this thesis is composed of four other 
chapters. 
CHAPTER TWO, Review of the Related Literature: 
(1) elaborates on the significance of context and tries to illustrate the 
relationship between form, meaning, and function of an 
utterance; 
(2) provides a definition of pragmatics, traces the historical origin of 
the different usages the term pragmatics has been put to, and 
outlines the scope of pragmatics; 
(3) reviews the notion of the speech act theory, and enumerates the 
flaws and shortcomings involved with this theory; 
(4) delineates the different approaches to the study of conversation; 
(5) provides a periphery of such conversational principles as 
cooperative and politeness principles; 
(6) reviews, in a detailed manner, the studies, both theoretical and 
empirical, that have been carried out on invitations in general 
and ostensible invitations in particular; and 
(7) explains ostensible invitations in English. 
CHAPTER THREE, Methodology, does the following respectively: 
(1) defines the key terms and concepts used through out the study 
for purposes of clarifying the study; 
 

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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 
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(2) introduces the subjects of the study; 
(3) describes the materials used in the study and justifies the 
selection of the corpus for the study; 
(4) outlines the characteristics of the data and explains the 
framework for the study; and 
(5) elaborates on the procedures used to the analysis of the data. 
CHAPTER FOUR, Data Analysis: 
(1) uses necessary tables to present the results and findings of the 
data analysis; and 
(2) interprets the table(s) for purposes of making the study 
understandable. 
CHAPTER FIVE, Conclusion and Pedagogical Implications: 
(1) provides a summary of the chapters; 
(2) discusses the conclusions of the study; 
(3) discusses the pedagogical implications of the study; and 
(4) provides some suggestions for further research.