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- Volume 18, Issue, 2008
Pragmatics - Volume 18, Issue 3, 2008
Volume 18, Issue 3, 2008
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A child of necessity
Author(s): Adeyemi Daramolapp.: 355–380 (26)More LessNigeria, which is variously described by some people as ‘a geographical expression’, ‘a unique nation’, ‘the giant of Africa’, ‘the most populous black nation on earth’, among several others, had three distinct governments in the year 1993 alone. Against this background of political instability, numerous discourses which should be of interest and significance to linguists, political scientists, historians, social anthropologists and discourse analysts of various persuasions are examined in this work. Notable is the emergence of the metaphorical use of the word child in the farewell speech of the deposed Head-of-State, Chief Ernest Oladeinde Shonekan, when he spoke of the interim regime as ‘a child of circumstance’ and in the inaugural speech of the then new Head-of-State, General Sani Abacha, as ‘a child of necessity’. These expressions were used not only as part of the reasons for either taking up or rather seizing the mantle of leadership but also as descriptive signals both to the state of the nation and the kind of government that they purported to lead. Using articles in some national newspapers, I attempt in this paper a functional-semiotic discourse analysis of the relevant statements, responses and comments on these national, dramatic, political changes. This paper is therefore an analysis of aspects of the linguistic features of discourses engendered by the diverse problematic, economic, socio-cultural and political events within the Nigerian polity and the political implications for putting in place adequate democratic principles in a developing nation.
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Topical and sequential backlinking in a French radio phone-in program
Author(s): Elwys De Stefani and Anne-Sylvie Horlacherpp.: 381–406 (26)More LessDrawing on a corpus of French radio phone-in confidential chats, this paper deals with the resources that participants recurrently employ to get back to a prior course of action following age-inquiry sequences. It might be expected that the age sequence occurs predominantly during the initial, opening part of the phone-call, as part of the caller’s identification sequence. Although such occurrences can be found, the age sequence is produced overwhelmingly after the introduction of the reason for call or after a pre- announcement of it. The way in which participants link back to the activity preceding the age sequence is related to the sequential placement of the age sequence as well as to the ‘authorship’ of its initiation and termination. Backlinking turns may therefore be analyzed with respect to their pragmatic effects (as doing restart, continuation, disjunction etc.) and with regard to the syntax and the linguistic units that speakers employ to achieve these effects.
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Not so impersonal
Author(s): Jaime J. Gelabert-Desnoyerpp.: 407–424 (18)More LessThis paper combines quantitative and qualitative analyses in a corpus-based study of how and for what purposes politicians, in the context of the Spanish Parliament, use the impersonal pronoun uno ‘one’. I begin by contrasting how uno is used in parliamentary debate versus non-political language. After reviewing traditional definitions of the semantic range and general behavior of this pronoun, I argue that a more accurate account that the one provided by standard grammars is needed for us to better understand how the peculiar characteristics of a parliament affect intentionality in the use of impersonal pronouns. In particular, it is argued that uno is utilized by politicians to serve principally two purposes: 1) avoidance of bluntness - a means of preserving professional etiquette, and 2) avoidance of self- praise - demonstrative of humility. Both purposes serve the larger objective of preserving professional face.
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Utterance-final conjunctive particles and implicature in Japanese conversation
Author(s): Michael Haughpp.: 425–451 (27)More LessAccording to the received view, connective particles are characterised as “bound grammatical markers” that connect two clauses into a ‘sentence’ (Matsumoto, Yo 1988: 345). As Fukushima (2005) points out though, these conjunctions have other functions that go beyond intra-sentential usage. Utterance-final conjunctive particles have been analysed thus far, for the most part, as a type of (clausal) ellipsis or as particles that give rise to various pragmatic effects. In this paper, it is suggested that an approach to utterance-final conjunctive particles that is grounded in the notion of implicature may offer a complementary perspective on this phenomenon. The notions of “(im)politeness implicature” and “interactional implicature” are utilised in order to discuss how utterance-final conjunctive particles may trigger inferences leading to various interpersonal and interactional effects. By carefully analysing the projection and uptake of these implicatures apparent in the sequential development of interpretings conjointly co-constituted in Japanese conversation, it is argued that the analysts’ and participants’ perspectives can be better reconciled to avoid the imposition of an analysis by the researcher which is not contingently relevant to those participants. It is argued that through such an analysis the manner in which linguistic and communicative perspectives on implicature can complement one another can be explored more fully.
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Psychics and the ‘other side’
Author(s): Marianne Masonpp.: 453–468 (16)More LessThis article provides a discourse analysis of a large corpus of televised psychic readings. The goal of this study is to uncover the relationship between the linguistic structure of psychic readings and the psychics’ linguistic agenda. The findings of this study suggest that the psychics’ engage in linguistic tactics that allow them to negotiate and extract specific information from their subjects. The discourse structure of psychic readings facilitates deception, since the subjects, rather than the psychics, are the actual source of subject-specific information in a reading.
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Counterfactual conditionals in argumentative legal language in Dutch
Author(s): Nele Nivellepp.: 469–490 (22)More LessLegal argumentation is intended to resolve a difference of opinion between two or more legal parties by determining what are the facts in a case and finding an appropriate legal interpretation for these facts. Some of the discussion moves in legal argumentation take the shape of counterfactual conditionals (CTFs). CTFs are conditionals with an antecedent that is implicated to be false, not corresponding to the facts, and they occur in a number of argumentative contexts and argumentation techniques. This paper gives a structured overview of how such non-fact-based CTFs can contribute to resolving a legal and fact- centered difference of opinion. It does so by presenting a bottom-up corpus-based typology of CTFs in lawyers’ conclusions and in judgments in civil cases heard by Dutch-speaking Belgian courts of law. This typology is based on linguistic and pragmatic factors, such as the status of the facts that are referred to in the antecedent, the nature of the relation between antecedent and consequent, and the relation the CTF bears to the argumentative, situational and legal context.
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Co-constructing identities in speeches
Author(s): Dorien Van De Mierooppp.: 491–509 (19)More LessThis paper investigates the way speakers construct their identities as representatives of their companies (institutional identity construction) in relation to the way they “project” an identity onto their audiences. The audience is “altercasted” (Weinstein and Deutschberger 1963) in the role of potential buyer of a product, thus evoking the standardized relational pair (Sacks 1972) of seller/buyer. The speaker then presents his company in the complementary role of seller of a product and as such a link is established between the identities of the speaker’s company and the audience. This discursive co-construction of identities is crucial for the way both identities receive meaning. The two cases that are discussed here on the one hand show similarities in the general pattern of the two identity constructions and the way they are interwoven with one another, but on the other hand also demonstrate that there are many unique and diverging ways of constructing and linking these identities.
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“Plaza ‘góó and before he can respond…”
Author(s): Anthony K. Websterpp.: 511–541 (31)More LessThis article suggests that much of the use of the Navajo language in contemporary Navajo written poetry, especially English dominant poetry, serves as an icon of proper Navajo usage. It is a purist view of the Navajo language. Navajo poetry is implicated, even if tacitly, in a discourse of linguistic purism that is tied to an oppositional linguistic ideology that sees Navajo and English as discrete and distinct “objects.” Navajo poetry erases the contemporary sociolinguistic diversity - including bilingual Navajo - on the Navajo Nation. And in so doing, it closes off parts of Navajo sociolinguistic realities and in its stead creates an imagined Navajo language community.
Volumes & issues
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Volume 35 (2025)
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Volume 34 (2024)
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Volume 33 (2023)
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Volume 32 (2022)
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Volume 31 (2021)
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Volume 30 (2020)
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Volume 29 (2019)
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Volume 28 (2018)
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Volume 27 (2017)
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Volume 26 (2016)
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Volume 25 (2015)
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Volume 24 (2014)
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Volume 23 (2013)
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Volume 22 (2012)
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Volume 21 (2011)
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Volume 20 (2010)
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Volume 19 (2009)
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Volume 18 (2008)
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Volume 17 (2007)
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Volume 16 (2006)
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Volume 15 (2005)
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Volume 14 (2004)
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Volume 13 (2003)
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Volume 12 (2002)
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Volume 11 (2001)
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Volume 10 (2000)
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Volume 9 (1999)
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Volume 8 (1998)
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Volume 7 (1997)
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Volume 6 (1996)
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Volume 5 (1995)
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Volume 4 (1994)
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Volume 3 (1993)
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Volume 2 (1992)
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Volume 1 (1991)
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