An Investigation into Expression of Argument in Sherlock Holmes Stories

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the syntactic and pragmatic aspects of arguments in Sherlock Holmes stories. Based on a theoretical framework of argument in critical thinking, this descriptive study was conducted with the application of the theory of syntax and pragmatics to investigate the types of argument used in Sherlock Holmes stories and their linguistic realizations in terms of sentence structures and illocutionary acts. From the analysis of the data of 80 arguments samples randomly gathered from Sherlock Holmes stories, the study found that the arguments were characterized syntactically in four- types of categories: declarative, interrogative, imperative and subjunctive sentences. Besides the major sentence of declarative sentence in structures S +V + O as Relative clause or Noun clause, compound and complex sentences, some instances of minor sentence were also identified in imperative mood and interrogative mood. Pragmatically, in terms of speech acts, arguments values were recognized with the representative and directive meaning of illocutionary force such as the representative with function of imparting descriptive information and the directive with function in presenting information as evidence or asserting a conclusion. In terms of implicatures, the study revealed that an unstated proposition treated as a missing part of an argument such as a premise or conclusion could be considered as what is meant in a Holmes’s utterance without being part of what is said. What he intends to communicate is characteristically far richer than what he directly expresses; linguistic meaning radically underdetermines the message conveyed and understood. Argumentatively, it was clarified clearly the argument patterns used in Sherlock Holmes with specialized words and structures that signal premise and conclusion in aspect of syntactic and pragmatic features. Also, it showed that getting insight into how argument patterns used in Sherlock Holmes as modus ponens and chain argument patterns.