Politeness and Ideology in Al TayyebSalih'sSeason of Migration to the North: A Critical Pragmatic Study

Abstract

This research is an attempt to study politeness and ideology in AL TayyebSalih'sSeason of Migration to the North. In order to do so, the researcher adopted two theoretical and analytical frameworks for the purpose of data analysis. The first one is Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness theory, and the second is van Dijk's (2000) ideologicaldiscourse structure. The study has four purposes. First, it attempts to investigate which politeness strategies are the most used by Mustafa Sa'eed and the other characters throughout the novel. The second purpose is to find the impact of some factors including power and distance on preferring one strategy over another. Moreover, the study aims to find the ideological structures which are used throughout the novel, and the reasons behind each use. The study also attempts to find the relation between Al TayyebSalih's ideology throughout the novel from one hand, and the use of one politeness strategy over another from the other hand. After applying Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness theory and Van Dijk's (2000) ideological discourse structures on Season of Migration to the North, the results show that the use of positive and negative politeness strategies throughout Season of Migration to the North vary according to different factors, including distance, power and place where the characters live. For Mustafa Sa'eed, the two main places in the novel (London and the Sudanese village) directly affect the use of one politeness strategy over another. Al TayyebSalih uses different ideological discourse structures to show us the real personality of each character. Finally, the researcher finds a strong relation between the use of politeness strategies on one hand, and the use of certain ideological structures on the other.