Analyzing Gestural Speech Acts in Backman’s Anxious People

This qualitative study explores the importance of language, as it is not merely the words that are being spoken out. The language includes the physical, verbal and gestural meanings as well. Different aspects of language highlight the importance of communication such as one of the aspects of the language; gesture, replaces the discourse by conveying the meaning that is hidden. The study analyses the novel Anxious People by Fredrik Backman through the lens of pragmatics, Backman is renowned for the emotional depth of characters. Under the study of pragmatics, different aspects have been analyzed. There is an analysis of ingrained meanings through illocutionary, locutionary and perlocutionary speech acts. The findings show that the elements of nonverbal communications such as gestures, body language, physical movement, silence that actually play their role as communicative tools. They are helpful and eventually replace the words and work independently.