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- Volume 30, Issue 3, 2020
Pragmatics - Volume 30, Issue 3, 2020
Volume 30, Issue 3, 2020
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The “Long List” in oral interactions
Author(s): Gonen Dori-Hacohenpp.: 303–325 (23)More LessAbstractThis paper discusses lists, a neglected structure, to challenge taken-for-granted assumptions about them in oral interactions. Two such assumptions are: unlike narratives, lists are perceived as centered on the delivery of objective information; and three-part lists are normative. Using Israeli and U.S.A. radio call-in shows data, this paper discusses the “Long List” – a list with more than three parts. These lists deliver their speaker’s meaning in a structure resembling stories: a “lister” delivers the “list” in a “listing” process. Listings may be explicit or implicit and may include evaluative elements. Long Lists might appear in chains, and in the Israeli data Long Lists demonstrate normative features similar to three-part lists in mundane interactions. Connecting them with their context, lists are sometimes used to emphasize media biases. The conclusion connects the Long Lists to their speech event and to poetics.
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Identity (self-)deconstruction in Chinese police’s civil conflict mediation
Author(s): Wenjing Feng and Xinren Chenpp.: 326–350 (25)More LessAbstractWhile recent pragmatic research on identity in discourse mainly focuses on ubiquitous construction of one’s own or others’ identity, inadequate attention has been directed to the frequently occurring deconstruction of self-constructed and other-assigned identities. Drawing on transcripts of recordings of 19 Chinese police officer-mediated interactions, this study examines what, how and why self-constructed and other-assigned identities of police officers are deconstructed. Qualitative analysis of the data shows that Chinese police officers’ self-constructed non-institutional identities were often deconstructed by disputants via negating their contextual appropriateness or their social or institutional rightness, whereas police officers also often deconstructed the institutional identities assigned to them by the disputants via negating the validity of the assigned institutional identity or the institutional relationship. It is argued that the cause of this identity deconstruction phenomenon is rooted in police officers’ identity dilemma arising from social changes regarding police work in China.
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The Korean hortative construction revisited
Author(s): Ahrim Kim and Iksoo Kwonpp.: 351–380 (30)More LessAbstractThis paper revisits the hortative -ca construction in Korean from a usage-based perspective, examining its functions in natural interactional spoken data The examination of the actual occurrence of -ca reveals its various functions: -ca indicates that the performer of the focal-event encoded in the utterance may be 1st person plural subject, i.e., the speaker and other interlocutors; 2nd person, i.e., the addressee(s); 1st person, i.e., the speaker; and 3rd person. Our findings provide direct evidence for the different degrees of prototypicality among these functions, which are reflected in their different frequency counts. Furthermore, this study proposes two novel functions of ca, the accordant imperative (to demand that the addressee agree with the speaker that the addressee perform the focal-event) and the speaker hortative (to ask the addressee to perform an action so that the speaker him-/herself can perform the focal-event).
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Swearwords reinterpreted
Author(s): Bin Li, Yan Dou, Yingting Cui and Yuqi Shengpp.: 381–404 (24)More LessAbstractSwearwords are common on the Internet nowadays. In addition to traditional forms and functions, new features and uses have been created as disguises and hedges, or even as deviants from insults. Focusing on the ‘new swearwords’ prevalent in Chinese social media, we identified the most commonly used novel swearwords developed and favoured by the young Chinese netizens, and analysed their linguistic features and uses on a Chinese social network site. We discovered that certain swearwords have undergone linguistic transformation to take up new grammatical and pragmatic functions. The invention and prevalence of these new swearwords raise interesting points on the roles played by the Internet and social media in bringing netizens together and in enabling them to create web content in their speech community.
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Complaint management on Twitter – evolution of interactional patterns on Polish corporate profiles
Author(s): Anna Tereszkiewiczpp.: 405–430 (26)More LessAbstractThe study concerns complaint management on Polish brand profiles on Twitter. The aim was to investigate selected language properties of corporate tweets and trace potential changes in the interactional patterns on the profiles occurring between 2015 and 2017. The study focuses on the structure and frequency of the respective strategies, as well as formality, the use of non-standard structures and emoticons. The study indicates the following directions of change: an increase in the use of address terms and explanations, a greater degree of language formality and indirectness, among others. The changes point to increased formulaicity and conventionalisation of expression, as well as an increased use of fixed patterns and templates. The changes constitute evidence of standardisation of the means of expression in customer encounters and a transfer of the conventions typical of other channels of interaction with consumers to the online context.
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Bonding across Chinese social media
Author(s): Chaoqun Xie, Ying Tong and Francisco Yuspp.: 431–457 (27)More LessAbstractThis paper explores social bonding in language play via the construction of ‘Chinese character (annotation)’ on two major social media platforms (Sina Weibo and WeChat) in China. The Chinese characters and their bracketed annotations under study, despite their one-to-one matching in sequence, never match each other either in meaning or in pronunciation. They convey a sense of playfulness among social media users who may be acquaintances or strangers to each other. While research on language play has uncovered systematic interpersonal meanings and social functions, our analysis of screen-based and user-based data shows that such linguistic behavior in a virtual community of practice contributes to social bonding among social media players. Within such structure and with different substitutes for both characters and annotations, social media users frame their expressions in evaluative or emotive ways to facilitate their presentation of an alternative self and of individual or community values.
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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