Metapragmatics and Facework of Iraqi Arabic Courtroom Discourse

Abstract

       Metapragmatics studies the language that describes and characterizes language use; facework refers to the communicative acts used to repair and restore self-face and sometimes to protect or threaten other-face. This research paper attempts to uncover the correlation between metapragmatics and facework. Metapragmatics is a relatively new field to be investigated practically. Explaining its crucial role in choosing and identifying facework strategies employed in Iraqi Arabic trials of political figures could be a challenging topic to tackle. To bridge the gap, the paper tries to answer two fundamental questions: What are the indicators of the metapragmatic expressions used in the Iraqi Arabic courtroom discourse? And what are the facework strategies fulfilled by these metapragmatic expressions? Accordingly, the objectives of this paper are 1) to identify the metapragmatic expressions in this discourse and 2) to investigate the facework strategies fulfilled by these expressions. This is done by analyzing Iraqi Arabic extracts of Aldujail case, examining metapragmatic indicators and metacommunicative awareness, as well as facework micro strategies in courts (Culpeper & Haugh, 2014; Penman, 1990). The paper concludes with metapragmatic expressions that explicate facework strategies in Iraqi Arabic legal discourse, emphasizing mutual metapragmatic awareness for effective communication.