A linguistic Study of Pleonasm in Samuel Beckett's the endgame

Abstract

pleonasm is Unrelated or needless word that only duplicate what has already been said. According to Cruse (2000: 223), “[a] pleonastic relation between two elements occurs when one of them seems redundant, add nothing other than the semantic information that already given by the other element.”. In everyday interaction as well as writing, an economical usage of words is not always what we demand. The aim of this study is investigating the types of pleonasm and their rhetorical functions within the framework of drama. The results shows that Prolixity which is a type of semantic pleonasm is the most frequently used. On the other hand, Multiple Affirmation and Emphatic Reflexive Pronouns which are types of syntactic Pleonasm reads (zero). The dominant Rhetorical function of pleonasm is Emphasis and Clarity is the less ones.

Keywords

• Pleonasm, semantic pleonasm, syntactic pleonasm, rhetorical function, Prolixity.