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- Volume 5, Issue, 2014
Pragmatics and Society - Volume 5, Issue 3, 2014
Volume 5, Issue 3, 2014
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Constraints on violating constraints: How languages reconcile the twin dicta of “Be different” and “Be recognizably language”
Author(s): G. Tucker Childspp.: 341–354 (14)More LessThis paper examines the contradictory demands of using language expressively and still qualifying as language, proposing a functional explanation for the form of words in a linguistic word category. Being expressive requires expending more energy, emitting a more robust signal to convey additional information about the speaker, the perception of an event, etc. Doing so requires violating the common linguistic constraints of everyday language, yet to be recognized as language requires that one’s speech obey these same rules. How speakers satisfy these demands tells us about language in both its function and form. The resolution of this dilemma requires the use of suprasegmental rather than segmental features, e.g., a wider range of and more varied use of F0. Because prosodic features are more susceptible to manipulation, they provide the resources for expressivity. Segmental parameters cannot be so easily violated, though manipulating phonotactics remains fair game. Thus we see that there are constraints on violating constraints.
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Ideophones’ challenges for typological linguistics: The case of Pastaza Quichua
Author(s): Janis B. Nuckollspp.: 355–383 (29)More LessTypological studies of motion verbs have struggled to conceptualize a framework that would adequately account for languages which make use of ideophoness for expressing manner of motion. This paper examines ideophones in the Pastaza Quichua dialect of Amazonian Ecuador, with a special focus on the structural patterns observable in two categories of Quichua verbs of motion: verbs of motion by limited translocation and verbs of motion by nonlimited translocation. These two types of verbs and their ideophones manifest 5 major patterns of verb/ideophone interaction, which may be schematized with a gradient scale of possibilities. On the one hand, verbs and their ideophones may come together and coalesce into a unity of meaning, a meaning that is, in fact, lexicalized in one verb form by other languages. On the other hand, verbs and their ideophones may be more inclined toward a ‘separatist semantics’, in which each entity expresses a conceptually distinctive action, event, or process. These patterns problematize several assumptions made in typological studies.
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Making new ideophones in Siwu: Creative depiction in conversation
Author(s): Mark Dingemansepp.: 384–405 (22)More LessIdeophones are found in many of the world’s languages. Though they are a major word class on a par with nouns and verbs, their origins are ill-understood, and the question of ideophone creation has been a source of controversy. This paper studies ideophone creation in naturally occurring speech. New, unconventionalised ideophones are identified using native speaker judgements, and are studied in context to understand the rules and regularities underlying their production and interpretation. People produce and interpret new ideophones with the help of the semiotic infrastructure that underlies the use of existing ideophones: foregrounding frames certain stretches of speech as depictive enactments of sensory imagery, and various types of iconicity link forms and meanings. As with any creative use of linguistic resources, context and common ground also play an important role in supporting rapid ‘good enough’ interpretations of new material. The making of new ideophones is a special case of a more general phenomenon of creative depiction: the art of presenting verbal material in such a way that the interlocutor recognises and interprets it as a depiction.
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Ideophones and (non-)arbitrariness in the K’iche’ poetry of Humberto Ak’abal
Author(s): Rusty Barrettpp.: 406–418 (13)More LessThis paper examines the ways in which Ak’abal uses K’iche’ ideophones and arbitrariness to highlight differences between Mayan languages and Spanish. This paper focuses on Ak’abal’s sound poems constructed through the use of K’iche’ ideophones, primarily onomatopoetic forms representing natural phenomena such as animal sounds, the movement of water, and sounds associated with weather. Ak’abal often treats non-onomatopoetic words (such as the names of birds) as ideophones, suggesting a direct (unmediated) relationship between K’iche’ signs and the natural elements of the environment. These uses of ideophones allow Ak’abal to position Mayan languages and literature as spiritually connected to the environment, in sharp contrast to the environmental destructiveness he associates with Spanish and Ladino cultural dominance in Guatemala.
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Ideophones in Vladimir Mayakovsky’s work
Author(s): Katherine Lahtipp.: 419–430 (12)More LessThe Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky used ideophones to create meaning. In fact Mayakovsky constantly used ideophones in his poetic expression, part and parcel of the emphasis on sound in his poetry. In the 1910s he worked alongside the Moscow Linguistic Circle. To the end of his life in 1930 (due to suicide) the poet remained close friends with the important linguist Roman Jakobson. There is no doubt that his association with linguists led to Mayakovsky’s paying more attention to verbal form in his work; in particular, his use of ideophones is remarkable.
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Rex Lee Jim’s ‘Mouse that Sucked’: On iconicity, interwoven-ness, and ideophones
Author(s): Anthony K. Websterpp.: 431–444 (14)More LessThis article explores the ways that Navajo poet Rex Lee Jim uses ideophony in one of his poems. I argue that Jim’s use of an ideophone in its myriad forms (from nominalized noun to independent ideophone to verb stem) creates an interwoven-ness across lines that evokes an iconicity of sound and sense. I begin by describing something of the grammatical structuring and uses of Navajo ideophony. I then turn to a discussion of contemporary written Navajo poetry that uses ideophony and especially Jim’s poetry. I follow this with a discussion of the use of Navajo ideophony in literacy education and in competing views about the appropriateness of using ideophony in Navajo written literature.
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Ideophones, rhemes, interpretants
Author(s): Mark A. Sicolipp.: 445–454 (10)More LessThis commentary considers the depictive quality of ideophones within the context of a general semiotic. I seek to expand the limited uptake of iconicity in linguistic theory from a resemblance between sign and object along Peirce’s second trichotomy (icon, index, symbol) to discuss iconicity from the often overlooked perspective of Peirce’s third trichotomy (rheme, dicent, argument). I examine ideophones as semiotic rhemes that affect iconic interpretants and suggest this shift in understanding iconicity unites lexical iconicity with depictive processes in interaction more generally, and beyond this with other rhematic linguistic signs. These parallels are illustrated by two examples of the expressive use of pitch, and throughout the discussion by reference to how the work of the authors of the present Special Issue help free a theory of iconicity from the bonds of it being considered a fixed, lexical relationship, to rather theorize iconicity as a poetic achievement designed for an interpreter’s active reception.
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Femininity in mixed-sex talk and intercultural communication: Are Japanese women polite and submissive?
Author(s): Hiroko Itakurapp.: 455–483 (29)More LessPrevious studies of language and gender discuss how men and women use gender-specific conversational styles mainly in relation to English, whereas similar studies for Asian languages remain comparatively few. Moreover, little is known about gender and conversational styles during intercultural communication. This paper explores whether speakers follow similar norms of politeness in mixed-sex talk in their L1 and in intercultural conversations in L2 English, and if femininities are modified, what factors may be involved. It reports findings from a case study of a Japanese female’s conversations with a Japanese male in Japanese and with three male L2 English speakers. It suggests that femininities might be modified to become more ‘immodest’ in English due to factors such as speakers’ varying level of adherence to native cultural norms in L1 and in L2 contexts and the male interlocutors’ ethnicity. For example, female speakers who adhere to native cultural norms in L1 conversations may see L2 intercultural contexts as opportunities to create non-traditional femininities, especially when there is no male interlocutor with shared ethnicity. The construction of L2 femininities may also be shaped by linguistic factors such as L2 proficiency or systemic differences between the two languages.
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A novel framework for teaching academic writing
Author(s): Hussain Al Sharoufipp.: 484–507 (24)More LessThis study represents an attempt to create a new framework for teaching academic writing. The new concept of the ‘Lexical Cohesive Trio’, LCT, combines elements of textual reference: anaphora, cataphora, and transitional signals (lexical repetition, bundles, and phrases). 30 English majors from the Gulf University for Science and Technology, GUST, in Kuwait were selected to write a pre-framework and a post-framework essay. The results were analysed using an SPSS package t-test. A pairwise t-test confirmed that more transitional signals were produced after the framework was used: t(1,29) = –4.938, p-value < 0.001. Similarly, a pairwise t-test confirmed that more lexical repetitions were produced after the framework was used: t(1,29) = –5.218, p-value < 0.001. Finally, a pairwise t-test confirmed that significantly more lexical phrases were produced after the framework was used: t(1,29) = –10.672, p-value < 0.001. These tests present strong evidence in favour of using LCT, and confirm that using this new framework enhances students’ ability to write coherent essays.
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