Pragmatics and Society - Volume 17, Issue 1, 2026

Abstract

Intermediate labor markets (ILM) aim to integrate disadvantaged individuals into labor markets by providing subsidized work opportunities. Using membership categorization analysis, we analyzed audio recordings of meetings where ILM professionals plan a new coaching model for a funding application. We examine the question: How do ILM professionals construct and navigate their institutional realities, i.e., their cultures-in-action, by constructing clienthood when planning the new model? We show how the coaches treat both responsiveness to clients’ individual needs and wants and client path standardization as essential elements in their work. However, the self-evident value of responsiveness is often talked into being when describing the plans at a general level; when discussing detailed plans, the extreme ends of client categories are talked into being. We discuss the possibility that emphasizing the extreme ends of clienthood may lead to leaving the variety of individual needs and wants aside in the planning of services.

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore the interplay between (im)politeness reciprocity and knowledge exchange (Ke) in screen-based interactions. By combining quantitative and qualitative methods, the learners’ reactions to a discussion prompt in a Massive Open Online Course were analyzed. The results show the influence of the Principle of Epistemic Reciprocity in the negotiation of epistemic agency in a situation of epistemic dispute. Our findings also suggest that the production of new propositional content plays a major role in speech acts of knowledge exchange while contributing to guaranteeing some degree of social acceptance in virtual communities.

Abstract

The present paper examines whether speakers’ gender affects how much they talk in conflictive discourse in Spanish — measured through number of words and number and mean length of interventions. We analyse role play data simulating two conflictive situations with varying levels of proximity between the participants. In addition to comparing female and male informants, we use a sociopsychological questionnaire to measure the informants’ conformity with traditional gender roles. Informants’ age was also analysed as an exploratory variable.

We found that both gender and gender role conformity correlated with different measures of amount of talk. In general, men produced more words and more interventions than women, while women produced longer interventions, and this effect was stronger for more gender-conforming women. The observed gender differences are partially attributable to different orientations towards the resolution of the conflict and — unexpectedly — to men’s more frequent use of interactional features.

Abstract

This study aims at identifying and analyzing the metaphors used to describe socio-political concepts in Jordanian Arabic newspapers in the context of the Jordanian protests during the Arab Spring. The analysis also includes the pragmatic functions that these metaphors serve in this context. To this end, a corpus of sociopolitical newspaper opinion articles published in 2011 and 2012 (i.e., the first wave of the Arab Spring) and 2018 and 2019 (i.e., the second wave of the Arab Spring) from two Jordanian daily mainstream newspapers, namely Ar-Rai and Al-Dustour is built from scratch. Metaphors are identified using Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP, Pragglejaz 2007). The results reveal that metaphors convey a number of pragmatic functions, namely, calming down the public protests and outcry and persuading the public to trust the government’s policy of carrying out reform and combating corruption. The study concludes that metaphors are highly affected by a range of socio-political and economic factors.

Abstract

This study examines a single highly controversial emergency call made to the Korean emergency center which garnered significant media interest due to the caller’s use of authority to demand the call taker’s name. The analysis shows how the sequential context in which turns are produced and the treatment they receive have consequences for how the dispute emerges by using the notion of activity contamination (Whalen et al. 1988). A sequential analysis of the recorded call revealed how the call for help fails as soliciting and giving reason for the phone call is displaced by the activity of arguing with each other. The caller’s use of directives and commands when addressing the call-taker is examined in relation to the Korean kapjil “abuse of power” culture. The findings may contribute insights into cultural dynamics in emergency calls, at the same time providing suggestions to improve the effectiveness of Korean emergency service calls in the future.

Abstract

This paper investigates how male and female doctors manage rapport by withholding advice in online medical counselling interactions. Data were collected from 60 doctors’ replies in response to web users’ advice-seeking inquiries on the Chinese health care website ‘Good Doctor Online’. From a comparative perspective, the study examined the use of two advice withholding strategies for rapport management — challenging a patient and parading expertise. The findings show that (1) both male and female doctors use the strategies to mitigate their authoritative force and empower patients with autonomy; and (2) female doctors tend to get the patients more involved in the interaction, while male doctors remain relatively more authoritative in accounting for their withholding behaviour. This research contributes to the study of health communication and extends the investigation of advice withholding from general discussions into a comparative analysis.

This article reviews Multimodal Im/politeness. Signed, spoken, written978-90-272-5445-0