A Pragmatic Study of Hyperbolic Forms in English and Iraqi Arabic Songs

The current study deals with hyperbole which makes use of exaggeration to convey a specific idea. Songs often employ exaggerated language to evoke powerful feelings or conjure up vivid pictures. However, they should not be interpreted literally. When it comes to songs, hyperbole is one of the most significant figurative tropes common to most languages. Since it is common in everyday speech across a variety of speech communities, its primary goal is to stress the singer’s or the speakers' points of view, emotions, sentiments, attitudes, and thoughts. This study aims at investigating hyperbole to see how the form of hyperbole varies in English and Iraqi Arabic songs; how they violate the Gricean Maxims, and how they function in songs. This is done using a qualitative method depending on an eclectic model at two levels: form and function. Data is collected by downloading songs from YouTube with a highly view rate and eliciting selected hyperbolic expression in six songs; four hyperbolic expressions from each language. The results indicated that Iraqi songs use the hyperbolic form of comparison and repetition more than English do, though both English and Iraqi songs violate the quality maxim, the latter also violate manner and relation maxims, as for the function,both use the hyperbole to denote emphasis and the English songs stress the function of surprise and vagueness heavily.