Pragmatics - Volume 21, Issue 3, 2011

Using a conversation analytic methodology, this report looks at conversations in English in which lengthy silences are regularly present. These silences are treated as unproblematic in this corpus. They apparently deviate from the proposals that gaps are minimized (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson 1974) and that there is a standard maximum silence of one second (Jefferson, 1988). This is discussed in light of context and culture. Then the robustness of some features of the organisation of sequences (Schegloff 2007) and turn- taking (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson 1974) are considered. Finally, solutions are compared for rendering lengthy silences in such a way that their meaning is preserved in conversation analytic transcripts or others that include timed silences.

Although there is a growing body of research on inferential sentences (Declerck 1992, Delahunty 1990, 1995, 2001, Koops 2007, Pusch 2006), most of this research has been on their forms and functions in written discourse. This has left a gap with regards to their range of structural properties and allowed disagreement over their analysis to linger without a conclusive resolution. Most accounts regard the inferential as a type of it-cleft (Declerck 1992, Delahunty 2001, Huddleston and Pullum 2002, Lambrecht 2001), while a few view it as an instance of extraposition (Collins 1991, Schmid 2009). More recently, Pusch’s work in Romance languages proposes the inferential is used as a discourse marker (2006, forthcoming). Based on a corpus study of examples from spoken New Zealand English, the current paper provides a detailed analysis of the formal and discoursal properties of several sub-types of inferentials (positive, negative, as if and like inferentials). We show that despite their apparent formal differences from the prototypical cleft, inferentials are nevertheless best analysed as a type of cleft, though this requires a minor reinterpretation of “cleft construction.” We show how similar the contextualized interpretations of clefts and inferentials are and how these are a function of their lexis and syntax.

This paper explores both racial and socioeconomic classification through language use as a means of membership categorization among locals in Hawai‘i. Analysis of the data focuses on some of the most obvious representations of language ideology, namely, ethnic jokes and local vernacular. Ideological constructions concerning two types of Filipino populations, local Filipinos and immigrant Filipinos, the latter often derisively referred to as “Fresh off the Boat (FOB)” are performed differently in ethnic jokes by local Filipino comedians. Scholars report that the use of mock language often functions as a racialized categorization marker; however, observations on the use of Mock Filipino in this study suggest that the classification as local or immigrant goes beyond race, and that the differences between the two categories of Filipinos observed here are better represented in terms of social status. First generation Filipino immigrants established diaspora communities in Hawai‘i from the plantation time and they slowly merged with other groups in the area. As a result, the immigrants’ children integrated themselves into the local community; at this point, their children considered themselves to be members of this new homeland, newly established locals who no longer belonged to their ancestors’ country. Thus, the local population, though of the same race with the new immigrants, act as racists against people of their own race in the comedy performances.

This article analyzes gestural interactions between hearing and d/Deaf Nepalis to argue that local understandings of the consequences of these engagements make visible ways of ideologizing gesture that may be obscured by the gestural typologies widely used by scholars. In Nepal, d/Deafness is associated with ritual pollution that can be shared across persons. Consequently, the use of gesture in a communicative interaction can both presuppose the presence of a polluted d/Deaf body and creatively index the transmission of that pollution to a hearing interlocutor. By the same token, gesturally engaging with Deaf persons can index “modern” rejection of belief in ritual pollution on the part of the hearing participant. While many scholarly typologies of gesture focus on form and decontextualized reference, the pragmatic effects of gesture derived from and contributing to differently positioned personhoods are more significant in local ideologies in Nepal.

In this article I explore the relationship between laugh responses and the turns which they orient to. I consider whether it is possible to identify properties of the prior turns that the recipient may be orienting to in laughing. Thus, I begin by briefly exploring the relationship between laughter and humour in interaction. But I point to some of the difficulties in identifying what it is that makes some discourse humorous, and I argue that laughter is not simply a reaction to the perception of humour. Laughter should be considered as an action in its own right, the occurrence of which may have nothing to do with the presence of humour. Consequently, I consider the notion of the “laughable” and whilst I agree that “(v)irtually any utterance or action could draw laughter, under the right (or wrong) circumstances” (Glenn 2003: 49), I argue it is often possible to identify recurrent properties of turns treated as laughables. These properties concern the design, action and the sequential position of the turns. Thus, it seems that speakers draw from a range of resources in constructing laughables. I illustrate this by exploring a collection of instances of figurative phrases followed by laugh responses from telephone calls. I argue that in responding with laughter, recipients may orient to a cluster of properties in the prior turn. However, because laughter is an action with its own sequential implications, rather than simply a response to a prior turn, whether a recipient orients to a prior candidate laughable by laughing will depend on the nature of his or her contribution to the action sequence.

This article reports on an interactional practice found in one form of adversarial talk, arguments during protests, where participants work to ‘entice’ a particular answer from an opponent using an uncontroversial questions in order to challenge the opponent on the basis of their own answer. Based on a collection of arguments during protests posted to YouTube, this article uses conversation analysis (CA) in order to investigate the way in which participants employ these uncontroversial questions as ‘pre-challenges’, using speaker selection, recipient focused topics and a moral ordering of talk to work to obligate a particular answer from the recipient. The results of the analysis illustrate several ways in which participants manipulate epistemics, speaker selection, and recipient design as resources for enacting social conflict.

The concepts of literacy and illiteracy are fluid; their meanings vary according to sociocultural-political trends and language ideologies. Reflections of literacy workers about their involvement in national literacy campaigns are a source of data for such fluctuations. This paper analyzes the recollections of Israeli former soldier-teachers from the time of the campaign, and additional data collected decades later in personal interviews. Close attention to discourse strategies used in both sets of data demonstrates how changes in the structure of society, and the public discourse of identity, affect the cluster of meanings along the continuum of literacy-illiteracy.

This study addresses variability among native speaker raters who evaluated pragmatic performance of learners of English as a foreign language. Using a five-point rating scale, four native English speakers of mixed cultural background (one African American, one Asian American, and two Australians) assessed the appropriateness of two types of speech acts (requests and opinions) produced by 48 Japanese EFL students. To explore norms and the reasoning behind the raters’ assessment practice, individual introspective verbal interviews were conducted. Eight students’ speech act productions (64 speech acts in total) were selected randomly, and the raters were asked to rate each speech act and then explain their rating decision. Interview data revealed similarities and differences in their use of pragmatic norms and social rules in evaluating appropriateness.

This paper seeks to specify the strategic function of adverbs like in fact and frankly when used to qualify the utterance that functions as a standpoint in an argumentative discussion. The aim is to provide a description of their strategic function that takes into consideration the role that the move of advancing a standpoint plays in argumentative discourse. To this direction, the choice of qualifying is explained as a choice that the arguer makes in his attempt to manage the burden of proof that is incurred when advancing a standpoint. By combining the insights from the pragma-linguistic treatment of these adverbs with the theoretical premises of a systematic approach to the analysis of argumentative discourse it becomes possible to specify their strategic function and to evaluate those cases in which this strategic function has been abused to the detriment of the quality of argumentative discourse.