Pragmatics and Society - Volume 13, Issue 4, 2022

Abstract

This article investigates reduced language in academic textchat. Previous work has suggested that frequency and context play a role in whether items can be reduced. It is demonstrated that students reduce more depending on the pedagogical set-up of the course, in that more reduction took place when the teacher-less pre-seminars came early in the course. Also, it was clear that high frequency items are more subject to reduction. When the topic is clear, items salient in such a discussion can be reduced. Also, the linguistic context of a full form of an item means that subsequent mentions can be reduced. Technical items vary in their behavior, and can be reduced or not. Another main conclusion, though, is that individuals also vary, and, when the context allows for it, can choose to reduce or not.

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effects of English proficiency (EP) and study-abroad (SA) experience on routine production among 143 Chinese university English learners. The interplay of learners’ mastery of prior context (PC) and actual situational context (ASC) knowledge reflected their productive competence of routines (PCR). Participants were divided into three groups based on their EP levels and length of SA experience: high EP without SA, low EP without SA, and high EP with SA. A pilot study with 41 American native speakers was conducted to determine the target response set as the baseline. A seven-item computer-animated production task was used to elicit routines that revealed learners’ mastery of ASC and PC knowledge. The findings revealed that EP was only necessary for learners’ PC knowledge and PCR. SA experience, alongside SA and EP interaction, had a significant impact on both sides of ASC and PC knowledge, as well as learners’ overall PCR.

Abstract

Employing Wodak’s discourse-historical approach, this paper examines how Ghana’s independence leader – Kwame Nkrumah – in his creation of the Unite or Perish myth constructed ‘the African people’ in a manner in sync with populist performance. It argues that Nkrumah’s discourse, in its focus on the formation of a Union Government of Africa as the only means of Africa’s peace, progress, security and survival in the post-independence era, can be characterized as a form of populist rhetoric that presupposes an antagonistic relationship between two homogeneous social groups. To this end, the paper analyzes three discursive strategies utilized by Nkrumah in promoting anti-establishment sentiments while celebrating or valorizing ‘the ordinary people’: nomination and predication of social actors and actions, the construction of a man of the people image and the exploitation of familiarity and historical memory. It concludes with a discussion on the implications of the study for political discourse analysis in terms of the interrelationship between political myth and populist performance.

Abstract

This study explores the performance and relational role of toast intervention in Chinese dining contexts. The analysis of both interactional data and post-event interview data indicates that the detection of moral transgression and moral identification may outweigh the power relationship and social distance in the interactional practice, and that toast intervention, by default, is relationally constructive even in seemingly conflictive situations. As a complement to previous research on ritual communication, such as countering the heckler and bystander intervention which focus on genuine aggression, this study sheds light on the ritual act of toast intervention as ‘mock intervention’, which is a form of ‘mock moral aggression’ similar to ritual teasing. Thus, this study reveals the greater significance of moral identification compared to other contextual factors, and its role in explaining the relational consequences of toast intervention in Chinese dining contexts.

Abstract

Neural machine translation (NMT), proven to be productively and qualitatively competitive, creates great challenges and opportunities for stakeholders in both the market and the education contexts. This paper explores how English-Chinese NMT post-editing (PE) is accepted in China from the perspectives of attitude, practice, and training, based on an integrative digital survey with role-specific popup questions for translators and clients in the market setting, and for translation teachers and students in the education setting. Descriptive statistics and correlation analyses of the survey data suggest Chinese stakeholders’ generally moderate view of PE, with outsiders like clients being more optimistic about PE than are insiders like translators. In the market setting, most translators use PE to different degrees in translating primarily informative texts; here, affiliated translators report a more frequent usage, and employ more sophisticated tools than do part-time or freelance translators. Whereas translators, on the whole, fail to notify clients of their own PE usage, or to charge clients for PE and human translation (HT) differently, most clients express their willingness to accept high-quality PE output for the sake of saving cost and time. In the education setting, despite students’ concealed usage of PE to do HT assignments to varying degrees, and their wish to learn PE out of concern for their future career, PE is generally not taught in translation classrooms of Chinese universities in the form of teaching PE as a course or integrating PE content into traditional translation course.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the linguistic mitigating devices that deaf Jordanian adults use when making requests. To this end, a sample of 52 people (of whom 26 were hearing and 26 were deaf) was collected through a Discourse Completion Task (DCT). It was found that the two groups of participants showed variations in the way they structured their request acts and spelled them out. This was evident in the deaf group’s obvious underuse of certain request mitigation strategies and the lexico-grammatical items mapping them; in the absence of some strategies (i.e., sweetener, promise of reward, hint, and threat); and in the underassessment of social distance, relative power, and degree of imposition. This inappropriate use of requesting acts by deaf participants is attributed to their inadequate linguistic, pragma-linguistic and socio-pragmatic competence. The study concludes with some suggestions how to improve the Jordanian educational system for the deaf.

Abstract

A highly important societal aspect of language use are pragmatic creative acts and interactions. The ability to, through multimodal interaction, create something new, is primordial for human sociality. In this paper, I propose a theoretical model that enables detailed analysis of situated co-operative creative actions as these naturally emerge in interactional situations. First, I develop the theoretical model by extrapolating from Charles Goodwin’s theory of co-operative action. I then illustrate the model through detailed analysis of a single case where participants interact in a video-mediated robotic context. The model is situated within ethnomethodological multimodal conversation analysis and based on video ethnographic data. This research contributes to the field of creativity and human pragmatic action by providing an applicable model for Situated Co-Operative Creativity, the SCOC model, which can be used for detailed analysis of everyday creativity.

Abstract

As modern Internet technology advances, some online medicare donation services in China have become available as a new way for the public to respond with financial assistance. This paper aims at identifying, describing, and analyzing the linguistic features of Chinese online medical crowd-funding and investigates how the online help-seekers negotiate their trustworthiness discursively. For this purpose, 500 pieces of help-seekers’ personal statements were collected from crowd-funding website (https://www.qschou.com), described and analyzed in accordance of discourse analysis. Results show that the help-seekers adopted three macro-discursive strategies to construct their trustworthiness: Embodiment-oriented strategy, evidence-motivated strategy, and emotion-oriented strategy. Detailed linguistic and para-linguistic means to realize these strategies are examined in great detail. Further research in this area is needed in order to raise awareness of trustworthiness construction and its difficulties for help-seekers in online crowd-funding scenarios

This article reviews OKAY across Languages: Toward a Comparative Approach to its Use in Talk-in-interaction978-90-272-0815-6