Pragmatics and Society - Volume 14, Issue 5, 2023

Abstract

Is the use of the first-person singular becoming more prevalent in journalistic writing, like often claimed, and what is it used for? In order to tackle these questions, we analysed 11,775 articles published between 1960 and 2010 in the cultural sections of ABC and El País (Spain), Dagens Nyheter (Sweden), Helsingin Sanomat (Finland), Le Monde (France), and The Guardian (UK). Our analysis focuses on the variation and change in the frequency and functions of first-person singular pronoun and verb forms over time and between different newspapers. We provide a logistic regression analysis of the whole dataset, as well as a qualitative analysis of the 1,077 articles containing at least one first-person singular. The analyses reveal a considerable amount of variation in first-person singular usage between each newspaper. The findings, however, converge to reveal that the frequency of first-persons singulars increases over time while its narrative uses become predominant at the expense of the evaluative and epistemic ones.

Abstract

Previous media studies have largely examined the media construction of ‘leftover women’ in the Chinese-medium news media that are pervaded by patriarchal content. Yet, little attention has been given to the thematic content surrounding leftover women in the Chinese English-medium news media which seem to be more liberal in their stance. To fill this niche, this study employs a key keyword analysis to examine the dominant thematic concepts related to leftover women in the Chinese English-medium news media. The findings illustrate that the key keywords in the news reports belong to three thematic categories, namely social actors and attributes, dating activities and relationships, and other social matters. These thematic categories are intertwined with one another to construct the overall representations of leftover women suggesting ideological implications for both patriarchy and egalitarianism. The usefulness of employing corpus techniques to examine overarching themes in gender representations is also highlighted in this study.

Abstract

This present study examines Indonesian parents’ utterance to instruct each other. The results show that Indonesian parents’ speeches in the family were situated in context and situation. Parents did not mention themselves nor their spouse as the addressee, instead using indirect utterance to instruct the addressee. They produced indirect utterances with implied meanings, instructing their spouse via speaking to their children or about other objects. Each parent understood their spouse’s intention from the context and physical condition of family members.

Abstract

This article seeks to explore the mechanisms of holding others accountable for a perceived deviation from moral order through public complaints on Chinese social media as well as the influences of emotional stance and social positioning when people perceive a breach of the moral order and try to restore it. Our data consists of a transcribed complaint narrative (CN) widely deemed morally transgressive, and a corpus of web-based news comments (WNC), displaying public counter-offensive actions to the CN. A contextualized discourse analysis reveals that abundant context-spanning impoliteness formulae in WNC are strategies for constructing collective identities and magnifying the condemnation of immorality. In the process of moral order appeal, using various emotive impoliteness formulae appear to be a situated norm.

Abstract

Trust is of great importance in modern society, but few studies look at it from a linguistic perspective. This paper explores the discourses of trust based on the data from the BLCU Chinese Corpus (BCC). This paper finds that the communicator’s inner states of trust, suspicion, or distrust could be revealed through various metalanguage labels. This paper also indicates several trustworthiness cues that would help determine whom to trust, including (i) the speaker’s credibility, image, and identity, (ii) the relation between speaker and hearer, and (iii) the information being addressed. Further quantitative analysis demonstrates that credibility plays a vital role in trust building, diminishing, or breaking. Besides, the communicators’ image or relation contributes to their trust-building, but there will be suspicion or distrust if their identity is not as expected. This paper will contribute to the theoretical understanding of trust from a linguistic perspective and an account of how people maintain trust in interpersonal communication.

Abstract

Using Huawei annual reports as data sources, this study examines rhetorical strategies in business discourse for the construction of corporate identity. A socio-pragmatic framework is proposed for analysing such strategies, incorporating a textual analysis of rhetorical strategies, a discourse analysis of pragmatic functions and discursive tendencies, and a social analysis of the construction of corporate identity. The research concludes that, among other strategies, allusion and reference demonstrate the discursive tendency of commodification, while parody and metaphor highlight the discursive tendency of democratisation. In terms of the constructive functions, allusion, reference, parody, and metaphor are used to construct the commerciality, legitimacy, approachability, and entrepreneurship of an enterprise, respectively. This study highlights the importance of rhetorical strategies for the construction of corporate identity and the necessity for annual report writers to employ rhetorical strategies for better corporate communication.

This article reviews Email Pragmatics and Second Language Learners9789027210012