Pragmatics and Society - Volume 11, Issue 3, 2020

Abstract

In legislative texts, deontic modality helps define rights, privileges, obligations, and responsibilities. Based on a corpus of Chinese civil laws from 1949 to 2015, the study investigates the development of deontic modality in Chinese civil legislative discourse and examines the variations of deontic modality diachronically from a quantitative, functional perspective, thereby shedding lights on variations of legal text. This study shows that patterns of deontic modality manifest different features in different stages. The changes of linguistic forms of deontic modality show evidence of the adaptive feature in legal language. From a quantitative perspective, the study suggests that a corpus-driven approach helps examine the development and evolution of deontic modality diachronically. It also contributes to an understanding of deontic modality mechanisms by providing both empirical evidence and theoretical insights.

Abstract

This article investigates the linguistic manifestations of gender discriminating stereotypes in the news coverage of the 2015 rape case “People v. Turner”. The case centers around a rape perpetrated by Brock Turner on the Stanford University campus in California. Articles from the online edition of the Stanford Daily are systematically analysed with respect to rape-myth consistent argumentation, amount of coverage granted to the perspectives of victim and perpetrator, naming/labelling of victim and perpetrator, and the transitivity choices that were made. All these factors can be identified in the news coverage of the Brock Turner case in one way or another. They result in victim blaming and mitigating perpetrator responsibility serving to show that sexist reporting is still an important issue where serious crimes like rape are concerned. Such linguistic practices re-victimise victims of sexist violence and ultimately contribute to a misogynist discourse and the reproduction and perpetuation of sexist stereotypes.

Abstract

This article focuses on an advertisement campaign run in Danish national newspapers promoting Boeing’s combat aircraft F 18 Super Hornet. The campaign received extensive media attention due to its scale and unconventional methods. On the basis of pragmatic text analysis we describe three features in the advertisements: Genre problems, a controversial depiction of sender and recipient, and problems relating to argumentation. We conclude that (1) the analyzed text is predominantly commercial in intent, although framed as information by a sender position that is partly ambiguous in terms of identity, and (2) the campaign’s main arguments are flawed, since decisive justification is not accessible. Based on the findings, the conclusion suggests that the campaign is best understood as a hybrid between public relations and public affairs.

Abstract

This study examines what may be learned from a semantic analysis of the discourse of criminal groups about elements of the cognitive map of the group’s members. The primary group examined comprised sex offenders who victimized children. The findings were compared with another criminal group – murderers. To examine their shared linguistic characteristics, a study was made of passages from 40 transcribed subject interviews, in which they tell their life stories. The function words from the passages were classified according to semantic fields, in order to identify what psychological and sociological insights can be gained from their use, a similar study was made of normative men’s stories. The semantic fields unique to the sex offenders are presented in this paper, and are compared with the fields used by the other two groups, together with a discussion of the significance of the words included therein.

Abstract

The present paper takes an ethnomethodological and conversation analytical perspective on assisted shopping as it is done by a person with acquired brain injury in collaboration with her caregiver. My interest is directed towards the interactional and embodied organization of the situated selecting and decision-making processes, while I am aiming to understand the interactional organization of assistance and agency. The embodied interaction analysis is based on two video-recorded examples in which a caregiver treats the institutional resident’s shopping choice as either unproblematic or undesirable. I will differentiate five phases in which the participants systematically organize the selection process. In these phases, the participants take different roles either as shopper or as assistant caregiver; as to the later, I will distinguish between moral and instrumental assistance. The analysis demonstrates an inherent tension in the assistance during shopping activities, as it is oriented to both the incompetence that justifies the need for assistance and to the interactional construction of a competent and independent shopper.

Abstract

The thesis of this article is that neoliberal governmentality, rather than means of coercion, uses various means of persuasion and ethical obligation. This is demonstrated by analyzing the discourse of the “Dr Mateusz Grzesiak” Facebook profile. It encourages individuals to utilize personal development techniques and promotes the neoliberal concept of the subject. Thus, this article explores the ideas proposed within studies of governmentality and supplements them with the perspectives offered by rhetoric culture theory. The profile of one of Poland’s most recognizable personal development coaches can be seen as a materialisation of neoliberal governmentality as well as a symbolic system used as an instrument of persuasion. It can be analysed through the dramatistic approach proposed by Kenneth Burke as well as the Aristotelian idea of ethos, Jean Nienkamp’s notions of internal and external rhetoric, and the concept of argumentation by model and example proposed by Chaïm Perelman.

This article reviews Exploring Multilingual Hawaiʻi: Language Use and Language Ideologies in a Diverse Society978-1498561181

This article reviews The Praxis of Indirect Reports: Cognitive, Sociopragmatic, and Philosophical Issues978-3-030-14269-8

This article reviews Analyzing Digital Discourse: New Insights and Future Directions

This article reviews Cohesion, Coherence and Temporal Reference from an Experimental Corpus Pragmatics Perspective