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- Volume 31, Issue 3, 2021
Pragmatics - Volume 31, Issue 3, 2021
Volume 31, Issue 3, 2021
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A relevance-theoretic account of translating jokes with sexual innuendos in Modern Family into Spanish
Author(s): Francisco Javier Díaz-Pérezpp.: 331–356 (26)More LessAbstractThe main purpose of this paper is to analyse jokes containing sexual innuendos in ambiguous utterances from the first two seasons of Modern Family and their translation into Spanish using relevance theory. More often than not, the ambiguity and sexual innuendos are also reflected in the Spanish versions analysed. Hence, in all those cases, in relevance-theoretical terms, the cognitive effects intended in the source text (ST), including humorous ones, will also be accessible to target text (TT) viewers. It, therefore, follows that the pragmatic scenario is preserved in the TT, sometimes at the expense of a sacrifice in the semantic scenario. In audio-visual texts, ambiguity may also impact the visual channel. Although in some cases the visual component may render the translator’s task difficult, in others it may act as an aid to both the translator and TT viewer, contributing to the yielding of humorous effects.
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Prescriptively or descriptively speaking?
Author(s): Tris Faulknerpp.: 357–381 (25)More LessAbstractIt is generally put forth that Spanish has the subjunctive as the required mood in the complements of emotive-factives (alegrarse de que ‘to be happy that’), desire verbs (querer ‘to want’), verbs of uncertainty (dudar ‘to doubt’), modals (ser posible que ‘to be possible that’), causatives (hacer que ‘to make that’), and directives (recomendar que ‘to recommend that’) (e.g., Real Academia Española 2011). However, in spite of these traditional rules, it has been observed that some of these environments allow for the indicative (Blake 1981; Crespo del Río 2014; Deshors and Waltermire 2019; Gallego and Alonso-Marks 2014; García and Terrell 1977; Gregory and Lunn 2012; Kowal 2007; Lipski 1978; Silva-Corvalán 1994; Waltermire 2019). The current study explored one such environment; emotive-factive clauses. Results showed that the presuppositions that speakers hold regarding the knowledge that their addressees possess influence the mood that they select. This, thus, demonstrates the important role that pragmatics plays in the occurrence of mood variation.
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Taking it too far
Author(s): Wei-Lin Melody Chang, Michael Haugh and Hsi-Yao Supp.: 382–405 (24)More LessAbstractWhile teasing can cause offence, participants on television variety or game shows are generally expected to tolerate it. In this paper, we examine comments posted on YouTube in response to reports of a leaked recording of a television host in Taiwan swearing at and insulting a guest who teased the host about his “inability to take a defeat”. In so doing, we examine both the perceived limits of teasing (i.e. what is considered allowable and what goes too far), and the perceived limits of taking offence in response to teasing (i.e. what ways of indicating offence are considered allowable and what goes too far). We conclude that instances where there are disputes about whether taking offence is warranted by the teasing in question provides us with a useful lens to examine the role ideological discourses play in (re-)constituting the underlying moral fabric of social interaction.
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The emergent construction of feminist identity in interaction
Author(s): Olivia Hirschey Marresepp.: 406–429 (24)More LessAbstractThis case study is an analysis of college-aged womens’ conversations about feminist identity and tracks a shifting attitude among college women with respect to feminist identification. Using conversation analysis, I argue that the interlocutors’ feminist identity is an interactional achievement produced by collaboratively setting aside topics related to feminism. This practice (re)problematizes feminism and maintains hegemonic standards of ‘feminist’ as an identity that needs to be accounted for in conversation. Building on Eckert and McConnell-Ginet’s (2013) work on the phrase “I’m not a feminist, but…” I argue that feminist identification may be shifting, as the discourse in the present study fall more in line with “I am a feminist, but…,” producing a ‘sort of’ feminist identity. In the discursive process of relevantly setting aside qualities and practices associated with feminism, the interlocutors (re)establish normativity surrounding feminist identity and its enaction in everyday conversation.
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Negotiating patients’ therapy proposals in paternalistic and humanistic clinics
Author(s): Akin Odebunmipp.: 430–454 (25)More LessAbstractThe negotiation of patients’ therapy proposals often makes a strong statement about doctors’ consultative styles in Nigerian clinical encounters. This invites a search into the relationship between patients’ preferred treatment options and doctors’ and patients’ approaches to negotiating them. Analysis reveals the sequential and face orientation mechanisms deployed in negotiating patients’ proposals in predominantly doctor-centred clinics, the interactional moves made by them in negotiating the proposals in predominantly patient-centred clinics, and the pragmatic implications of the proposals negotiated in both clinics. The negotiations in the clinics are anchored to strategic rapport building, the colonisation of patients’ lifeworld and constrained joint decisions. Rapport is poorly built in the doctor-centred clinic with power-imbued strategies which stifle patients’ voice and lead to completely-constrained joint decisions on therapy proposals by patients. Participatory consultation enhances negotiation in the patient-centred clinic, but the physician’s misleading strategic sequences and exaggerated emotions somewhat weaken the ultimate consultative outcome.
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“Abeg na! we write so our comments can be posted!”
Author(s): Foluke Olayinka Unuabonah, Folajimi Oyebola and Ulrike Gutpp.: 455–481 (27)More LessAbstractThis paper examines three borrowed pragmatic markers from Nigerian Pidgin into Nigerian English, abeg, sef and na, with a view to exploring their meanings, frequencies, spelling adaptability, syntactic positions, collocational patterns and discourse-pragmatic functions in Nigerian English. The data which were extracted from the International Corpus of English-Nigeria and the Nigerian component of the corpus of Global Web-based English were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively, using the theory of pragmatic borrowing. The results indicate that the three pragmatic markers differ distinctly in their frequency across text types, syntactic position, the range of pragmatic meanings, the number of spelling variants and their collocations: abeg is used as a mitigation marker which can also function as an emphasis marker, sef is an emphasis marker but has additive and dismissive functions, while na is used purely as an emphasis pragmatic marker. The study shows the influence of Nigerian Pidgin on Nigerian English.
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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