The Role of Natural Language Processing Techniques in Linguistic Analysis of Nadia Hashimi’s ‘The Sky at Our Feet’ Based on Speech Acts Theory

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the role of Natural Language Processing in the linguistic analysis of Nadia Hashimi’s The Sky at Our Feet based on Speech Act Theory as its primary analytical approach. Through an integrated approach that combines Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques with Speech Act Theory (SAT), the analysis employs basic conceptual NLP-informed techniques within an NLP-informed qualitative analytical framework to distantly read textual patterns, apply sentence segmentation, and function modelling. Extracting and classifying lexico-grammatical patterns, sentence types, and discursive features is a process carried out with a focus on dialogue-oriented narrative segments, which then adopt a pragmatic typology of utterances based on Searle’s (1969) classifications of speech acts. Text Segmentation, Utterance Identification, and Pragmatic Classification are guided by humans rather than computational applications. Methodologically, the study employs NLP techniques as a supplementary analytical aid, relying on them while ensuring that human judgment remains the unchallenged essential element in literary pragmatics. From a linguistic perspective, the study shows that core NLP procedures can be applied without the need for computational tools. It facilitates speech act careers in interpreting utterances within specific contexts, through conceptual rather than computationally NLP-performed processing, which can be applied in literary linguistic investigations. The findings expose that conceptual human-centred NLP approaches effectively support pragmatic analysis and suggest that the use of NLP tools alongside pragmatic theory (SAT) enables systematic analysis of literary texts in natural language while preserving their interpretive depth within a literary framework.