@article{2016,title={THE FUNCTION OF ‘APOSIOPESIS’ IN TOP GIRLS BY CARYL CHURCHILL},abstractNode={Language as a means of communication is considered as one of the most significant sine qua non characteristics of human being. Language, namely the ability to acquire and use complex system of communication, is somewhat meaningful in its own culture as it is deeply involved with the given culture in multiple and complex ways. As language is acquired by cultural transmission, ‘aposiopesis’ just like the other agents of verbal language such as pauses, laughter, psittacism, turn-takings and etc. is also employed in a language typical to its own culture. Aposiopesis, as a rhetorical artifice, is derived from a Greek word that means ‘becoming reticent’ wherein a sentence is intentionally broken off or left unfinished in order to give an impression of unwillingness or inability to continue. Aposiopesis remains the sentence unfinished by leaving the reader or speaker in a position of guessing what stands behind this sudden silence. Such a halt represents that either the speaker or the writer is not willing to communicate or state what is in his/her mind due to overcome by passion, excitement or fear. In this regard, this paper firstly includes the definitions of language and culture and then explores the interrelations between these two terms. Then the term aposiopesis is identified in order to unveil technical use of aposiopesis contextually in a play entitled Top Girls (1982) by Caryl Churchill. The main purpose of this paper is to decode cultural, historical and political perceptions of the 1970s and 1980s by bringing into the light the reasons that lie beneath the silence or reticence of the characters in the play.},author={Dilek Tüfekçi CAN},year={2016},journal={The Journal of Academic Social Science Studies}}