English Diminutives in Children's Literature: A Case Study of Directive Speech Acts

The article deals with English diminutives within the framework of speech act theory. The focus is on the diminutive-based directive speech acts, which are used to get a hearer to perform an action. The research is based on children's literature that is rich in diminutive forms due to the fact, that it is child-directed and anthropocentric. Our intention is to show that the speech situations in which a child is one of the participants of communication, i.e. as addresser, addressee, referent, or third party, contribute to the realization of diminutivity. In accordance with Searle's taxonomy of speech acts the research presupposes analyzing the use of diminutives in such directives as order, demand, request and pleading. Of special interest is the implementation of the strategies of positive and negative politeness in children's literature. The results of the empirically-based study are reflected in the quantitative analysis of English diminutives in children's literature, which indicates that the number of occurrences notably prevails in directive speech acts of order and demand.