International Journal of Philology

The article focuses on the analysis of strategic ambivalence in illocutionary speech acts. The paper examines pragmatic properties of strategic ambivalent illocutionary speech acts in modern English dialogic discourse. It is suggested that strategic ambivalence is typical for situations when the speaker has certain perlocutionary intent and is willing to achieve it. Two cases of strategic ambivalence are distinguished: a) when perlocutionary intent is clear in the speaker’s mind and not negotiable; b) when perlocutionary intent is clear in the speaker’s mind and negotiable

ambivalence; illocutionary speech act; strategic ambivalence; speech act theory; perlocutionary intention