The master's thesis in the Department of English Language / College of Education for Humanities / University of Basra _ Study of justification strategies in Arthur Miller's The Crucible: A Study in Dramatic Discourse
The thesis of the student Zuhal Khaled Abdul Majeed Al-Asadi aimed to apply social and psychological theories, specifically the justification theory of critics Scott and Lehman, to analyze the dramatic discourse in The Crucible play. The aim of this is to show how dramatic texts can be a valuable source for analyzing character interactions using psychological theories, as this type of theory has not been previously applied to literary texts.
The thesis included five chapters. The first chapter reviews the introductions to the thesis and includes the thesis questions, its importance, its objectives, and its limits. While the second chapter deals with the theoretical background of the thesis by reviewing related studies that review dramatic discourse and the psychology of discourse in addition to previous studies related to the theory of justifications and The Crucible play. The third chapter includes an explanation of the method by which the samples will be analyzed using a mixed-methods approach that integrates qualitative and quantitative analyses in addition to explaining the theory. Chapter four constitutes the practical side of the thesis, as it presents a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the samples. The study identified different forms of justifications and excuses used by the characters, which reflect their relationships and social intimacy through the five linguistic styles included in the theory. The researcher summarizes the results in Chapter five and presents a set of recommendations and suggestions for future research. The thesis concluded that the play is well suited for such an analysis due to the characters' frequent use of types of justifications to defend themselves and excuses to defend their loved ones. Psychological and social theories are applicable to dramatic discourse and are not limited to political, religious, and social fields
