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Abstract

Abstract

In this paper, we revisit the long-held assumption that the Chinese second-person V pronoun is an essentially ‘deferential’ pronoun. We examine uses of in settings where disagreement occurs and where conventionally the T pronoun would be preferred. Our research follows a bipartite design. First, we used a Discourse Completion Test to discover under what circumstances Chinese speakers use if disagreement emerges. The results revealed that uses of in disagreements are preferred in informal computer-mediated communication and by members of the younger generation. Second, based on this outcome we examined naturally occurring uses of in online data featuring disagreement. Here we relied on an interactional approach, which helped us to identify patterns of uses of . The existence of patterns in seemingly occurrences of online disagreement shows that expressing deference is not the only pragmatic function of .

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/content/journals/10.1075/prag.23008.kad
2023-11-16
2024-09-12
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keywords: Chinese ; nin ; V pronoun ; disagreement
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