الفهرس 
Introduction and Research ApproachOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The main focus of this thesis is to point out the intended meaning in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town and The Skin of our Teeth, from a pragmatic perspective. The pragmatic tools used in this thesis are Deixis, Conversational Implicature and Speech Acts. A theoretical survey is given followed by an application on the two previous mentioned plays. The thesis concludes that exploring Wilder’s plays by deixis makes it clear that Wilder has intended to make the issues discussed in his plays universal. The deictic references confirm that the plays under consideration are American classics with universal appeals.
Conversational implictures are concerned with what we call implicit meanings. Violating implicature demonstrates the implicit meanings Wilder tries to communicate to us while coated in his theatrical practice. Speech Act theory analyses utterances as performing actions. In Wilder’s plays, there are many types of speech acts (speech acts between the characters and the audience, between the characters themselves, between the audience and the reader himself). In their direct speech the characters have a message to convey to the audience. Life has to be lived regardless of hardships as in Our Town or stressing the hardships in our world as in The Skin of Our Teeth. Most of the illocutionary acts performed are directive as they urge the audience to be participant in their lives and take actions to save the world.