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- Volume 15, Issue 5, 2024
Pragmatics and Society - Volume 15, Issue 5, 2024
Volume 15, Issue 5, 2024
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On the constitutional relevance of non‑discursive enlanguaged doings to sociomaterial practices
Author(s): Rasmus Gahrn-Andersenpp.: 661–681 (21)More LessAbstractIn expanding on the ‘dynamics first, symbols afterwards’ principle (Cowley 2009) of Distributed Language research, I propose that embodied linguistic competencies comprise the prerequisite for human agents to engage in sociomaterial practices. I make the case that human practical activity is fundamentally ‘enlanguaged’ and that linguistic skills are not only trans-practical in the sense of enabling agents to engage in diverse activities across practices but also that they constitute the basis for adult skill acquisition (see Dreyfus and Dreyfus 1986) more generally. Specifically, I explore language-relative skills as the enablers of more diverse activities than what is prescribed to them by Saussurean linguistic tradition i.e., the denotative relations intrinsic to linguistic signs as well the rule-governed combinations of such signs into meaningful sentences.
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“Not everything is on the hostess”
Author(s): Inas I. Almusallampp.: 682–707 (26)More LessAbstractDrawing data from the recordings of natural conversations and meta-pragmatic comments, and combining the neo-Brown and Levinson approach and the relational work framework, this paper explored how Saudi female friends manage friendly informal settings and hospitality despite culture-specific politeness expectations. The analysis focused on just one of the discursive strategies in which the direction of displaying hospitality is turned around, i.e. displayed by the guests rather than the host(ess). This strategy constituted a noticeable behaviour among the 13 close friends observed in this study. Cooperative conjoint hospitality was particularly useful for maintaining and enhancing rapport, in-group membership, and solidarity among the friends and minimising hospitality obligations of the hostess. The analysis demonstrated how such behaviour was consistent with the politeness norms negotiated in the close friends’ community of practice (CofP) but differed from the politeness norms in the wider culture.
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Affect in the pragmeme of delivering a health directive
Author(s): Ming-Yu Tsengpp.: 708–731 (24)More LessAbstractThis study investigates how affect is manifested in the pragmeme of delivering a health directive in the Covid-19 context and how affect co-participates in the pragmeme. This research draws on theoretical insights from pragmeme theory, relevance theory, and the recent distributed language view, with the aim of contributing to the development of a language-body-environment perspective on pragmatic acts. By way of illustration, two videos used in BBC reports were analyzed, one featuring the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s order to the British people to stay at home and the other being an unofficial, self-made video that also appeals to the public to remain at home. This paper argues that affect in its various manifestations embodies affective potential, which should be regarded as being part and parcel of the pragmeme.
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A politeness-theoretic approach to mitigated disagreements in online radio medical consultations
Author(s): Xin Zhaopp.: 732–754 (23)More LessAbstractIn medical settings, disagreement between doctors and patients frequently occurs, and it is considered a potential trigger to elicit conflicts. Hence, the point of departure for this study is the widely accepted view that these kinds of “face-threatening” and “dispreferred” acts need to be modified. Thus, this study sheds light on analyzing doctor-patient’s discourse in 25 episodes of online radio medical consultation, reporting on Chinese doctors’ mitigated disagreement forms and offering a novel perspective on how Chinese doctors use these mitigated disagreements to turn divergent ideas into alignment with patients in online radio medical consultation. The findings in this study provide preliminary empirical support for the idea that mitigated disagreements can be seen as a sign of relational work and may not destroy but rather strengthen doctor-patient’s relations.
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Politely warning?
Author(s): Amy Ives Takebepp.: 755–778 (24)More LessAbstractTaking a usage-based approach, this study examines the social meaning of Japanese honorifics when they are used in call-to-action statements in official disaster warnings on Twitter. This study finds two honorific request constructions, Verb-te kudasai and o-Verb kudasai, to be dominant directives used in the data collected for this study. Discourse analysis of the texts found the two honorific request constructions signaling different levels of severity of the impending threats in accordance with the different degrees of freedom of actions given to the warning recipients upon complying with the recommended actions. The findings also suggest the use of honorifics helps maintain the warning sender’s institutional identity as they communicate safety information to the public on behalf of the meteorological agency. This paper extends the discussion of the multifunctionality of honorifics by highlighting the use of them in digitally mediated institutional discourse contexts.
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Exploring lexical associations in English as a Lingua Franca interactions
Author(s): Yang Pangpp.: 779–799 (21)More LessAbstractThe current research draws on the pragmatic approach to ELF initiated by Kecskes (2019), who proposes that temporary norms and routines are created during intercultural encounters and interactions. Based on the qualitative and quantitative analysis of collocate tokens that are strongly associated with the verb phrases of see, look, hear, listen, watch, and feel, retrieved from Asian and European ELF corpora, this study demonstrates the tendency to use similar lexical associative patterns among ELF interlocutors despite their distinct linguacultural backgrounds. An analysis of the lexical associations of the verb phrases in ELF and English Native Language (ENL) corpora further confirms that ELF speakers do not conform to ENL conventions; instead, they start to develop their own norms that are characterized by specific lexical associations and formulaic expressions.
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Review of House & Kádár (2021): Cross-cultural pragmatics
Author(s): Roberto Gracipp.: 800–804 (5)More LessThis article reviews Cross-cultural pragmatics
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Review of McCready (2019): The Semantics and Pragmatics of Honorification: Register and Social Meaning
Author(s): Chengtuan Li and Xiaorui Lipp.: 805–809 (5)More LessThis article reviews The Semantics and Pragmatics of Honorification: Register and Social Meaning
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