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Pragmatics - Online First
Online First articles are the published Version of Record, made available as soon as they are finalized and formatted. They are in general accessible to current subscribers, until they have been included in an issue, which is accessible to subscribers to the relevant volume
1 - 20 of 30 results
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‘Where have you been hiding this voice?’
Author(s): Fathi Migdadi, Muhammad A. Badarneh and Areej QudaisatAvailable online: 14 March 2024More LessAbstractThis study explores compliments given by judges to contestants on the TV talent show Arab Idol. A total of 120 comments from the third season 2014–2015 were analyzed for compliment types, structures, lexicon, and supportive remarks. Spenser-Oatey’s (2000, 2002, 2005a, 2005b, 2008) rapport management theory was employed to determine how judges managed rapport with contestants through compliments. The analysis shows that the majority of judges’ compliments on the show were explicit compliments that were based on three syntactic patterns and four types of positive semantic carriers conveying complimenting adjectives, verbs, nouns, and adverbs. A smaller category of implicit compliments involved such strategies as comparison/contrast, rhetorical questions, and praising contestant’s country. Both categories were typically qualified by supportive or weakening elements such as repetition, encouragement, and criticism, resulting in a third category of ‘macro-compliments’. The study shows that rapport management accounts to a large extent for the judges’ complimenting behavior.
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Embodied interaction with face masks and social distancing
Author(s): Ulrike Schröder and Sineide GonçalvesAvailable online: 01 March 2024More LessAbstractIn this article, we ask how interlocutors proceed with their daily activities in the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic when faced with new ways of communication due to social distancing and the use of face masks. We carried out a fine-grained analysis of different micropractices from daily work in a healthcare center in Brazil and built our analysis on multimodal conversation analysis (MCA), interactional linguistics (IC), as well as gesture studies (GS). The analysis revealed that particularly the following recurrent patterns seem to be characteristic for communication during the pandemic in the given microcontexts: (a) a high use of deictic gestures, (b) an intensification of prosodic means, (c) verbal strategies such as reformulation and repetition, (d) the integration of object manipulation and (e) mitigation strategies in case of new formats that imply intrusion such as controls at travel checkpoints.
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Multiple repair solutions in response to open class repair initiators (OCRIs) in next turn
Author(s): Aonrumpa Thongphut and Jagdish KaurAvailable online: 29 January 2024More LessAbstractThe study examines repair practices of speakers following an open class repair initiator (OCRI) in next turn in hospitality and tourism (HT) service encounters mediated through English as a lingua franca (ELF). The data comprise fifteen hours of naturally occurring ELF service encounters recorded at three HT sites in Thailand. Using conversation analytic procedures, the analysis reveals that speakers may offer multiple repair solutions following an OCRI, which appear oriented to a potential problem of understanding rather than one of hearing. The participants combine repetition of the trouble-source turn with comprehension-enhancing techniques such as lexical replacement, rephrasing of prior talk and explication of potentially problematic words. As it is pertinent that messages are accurately relayed and received, speakers adopt a proactive stance and combine repair practices to raise explicitness and improve communicative clarity. In ELF HT service encounters, the principle of increased collaborative effort prevails and underlies communicative effectiveness.
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How face is perceived in Chinese and Japanese
Available online: 19 January 2024More LessAbstractThis study aims to examine how Chinese and Japanese speakers perceive face-enhancement and face-threat from a value-construct perspective. A mixed-method research design consisting of a questionnaire and structured interviews was employed. The results suggest that the values which trigger face-enhancement and face-threat are differently distributed between the two linguacultures in face-threatening and face-enhancing situations. Both Chinese and Japanese participants agreed that competence was the top value for face-enhancement. The Chinese participants considered status superiority as the more sensitive triggering value of face-enhancement, whereas the Japanese participants believed that good public image, self-esteem, and pride were the main factors. In face-threatening scenarios, the Japanese participants paid more attention to self-abasement and shame, inconsideration and irresponsibility, whereas the Chinese were more sensitive to incompetence. We attribute these differences in individuals’ perspectives on interpersonal relationships as a possible cause of their divergent perceptions of face.
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Move combinations in the conclusion section of applied linguistics research articles
Author(s): Tomoyuki KawaseAvailable online: 09 January 2024More LessAbstractGenre analyses of research articles (RAs) have identified types of communicative purposes or moves achieved in different sections. However, very few studies have explored why moves are sequenced in specific manners. This study examines how writers relate moves to be coherent in the conclusion section of fifty applied linguistics RAs. The analysis shows that the writers achieved different types of moves in a relational manner for specific rhetorical intentions. The majority presented a summary of the study or previous research trends as background information to guide readers to acknowledge the significance of the study or the findings they later indicated. Some writers drew implications from findings of their studies they presented earlier to demonstrate the usefulness of the findings. Others provided recommendations for future studies based on the limitations of their studies that they indicated earlier to draw readers’ attention away from the limitations as potential weaknesses.
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What kind of laughter?
Author(s): Pnina Shukrun-Nagar and Galia HirschAvailable online: 28 November 2023More LessAbstractThe article examines the pragmatic functions of the Hebrew graphic laughter marker “hhh” in a particularly turbulent public-political discursive arena – online readers’ comments to Facebook posts by the two leading contenders for the post of Israeli prime minister during the 2020 election campaign, Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz.
We argue that “hhh” fulfills three functions dependent on its co-text, textual position, and length: (1) contempt marker – conveying contempt, ridicule, or disgust, towards a previous comment or post, their authors, or the associated political wing; (2) intention marker – signaling the employment of pragmatic strategies in the comment; and (3) interpretation marker – indicating the deciphering of pragmatic strategies in a previous post or comment.
The findings indicate that in all three categories “hhh” is used mainly to taunt the rival political wing, at times by creating an alliance with other commenters at the expense of their common rivals.
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Modifying requests in a foreign language
Author(s): Wei LiAvailable online: 21 November 2023More LessAbstractThis longitudinal study examines the pragmatic development of Australian learners of Chinese in their use of internal modifiers of requests over the course of a semester. An eight-situation DCT was used to collect data. A perception questionnaire and informal interviews were also used to aid the interpretation of the data. Results indicate that despite considerable pragmalinguistic development in some areas, learners’ overall use of Chinese internal modifiers still lagged far behind that of native speakers. Moreover, there was only a little evidence of situational variation. Hence this study suggests the precedence of pragmalinguistic over sociopragmatic development. The study adds to the small but growing body of research on pragmatic development in L2 Chinese.
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Beyond the deferential view of the Chinese V pronoun nin 您
Author(s): Dániel Z. Kádár, Juliane House and Hao LiuAvailable online: 16 November 2023More LessAbstractIn this paper, we revisit the long-held assumption that the Chinese second-person V pronoun nin 您 is an essentially ‘deferential’ pronoun. We examine uses of nin in settings where disagreement occurs and where conventionally the T pronoun ni would be preferred. Our research follows a bipartite design. First, we used a Discourse Completion Test to discover under what circumstances Chinese speakers use nin if disagreement emerges. The results revealed that uses of nin in disagreements are preferred in informal computer-mediated communication and by members of the younger generation. Second, based on this outcome we examined naturally occurring uses of nin in online data featuring disagreement. Here we relied on an interactional approach, which helped us to identify patterns of uses of nin. The existence of patterns in seemingly ad hoc occurrences of online disagreement shows that expressing deference is not the only pragmatic function of nin.
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The role of multimodality and intertextuality in accentuating humor in Algerian Hirak’s posters
Author(s): Mohammed Nahar Al-Ali and Badra Hadj DjelloulAvailable online: 02 November 2023More LessAbstractThis study investigates how the interaction between multimodal modes and intertextual resources accentuates humor functions. Kress and van Leeuwen’s Visual Grammar ( 2006 ) was adopted to analyze a set of sixty humorous online posters of Hirak’s movements. The results revealed that humor was generated from the purposeful interplay of various semiotic modes and the reproduction and recontextualization of shared socio-cultural and political resources. The protesters utilized cartoon characters, religious discourse, folk traditions, and cultural mundane to represent the authority’s members humorously as lawbreakers, prisoners, robbers, and gangsters. This humorous exposition has placed the authority members outside the Algerian societal in-group boundaries. In contrast, such a device has enhanced conformity among the protesters and exhibited their superiority over the ruling outer group. We hope such an investigation will pave the grounds for further studies and provide insights into multimodal discourse analysis.
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The use and perception of question tags in Trinidadian English
Author(s): Michael WestphalAvailable online: 23 October 2023More LessAbstractThis study presents an analysis of the use and perception of variant question tags and the seven invariant forms eh, ent, nah, OK, not so, right, and you know in Trinidadian English. The analysis of use is based on four dialogue text types from the Trinidad and Tobago component of the International Corpus of English and takes a variationist approach. The analysis of the perception is based on a survey that combines a multiple-choice test, where participants were presented with different dialogue scenarios and had to select the form they found most appropriate, and an indirect language attitude test, in which participants rated the use of the eight question tags on attitudinal scales and added open comments. The usage and perception profiles of the eight forms largely overlap but there are marked differences for individual forms.
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The use of interlocking multi-unit turns in topic shifts
Author(s): Innhwa Park, Rachel S. Y. Chen, Jan Gorisch, Song Hee Park, Nadja Tadic and Eiko YasuiAvailable online: 19 October 2023More LessAbstractThis paper examines multi-unit turns that allow speakers to retrospectively close the prior sequence while prospectively launching a new sequence, which Schegloff (1986) referred to as interlocking organization. Using English telephone conversations as data, we focus on how multi-unit turns are used for topic shifts, and show that interlocking organization operates in conjunction with other phonetic and lexical features, such as increased pitch and overt markers of disjunction (e.g., “listen”). In addition, speakers utilize an audible inbreath that is placed between the first and the second units as a central interactional resource to project further talk, thereby suppressing speaker transition and possibly highlighting the action delivered in the second unit as being distinctly new. We propose that interlocking multi-unit turns, when used to make topically disjunctive moves, promote progressivity by avoiding a possible lapse in turn transition.
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Syntax and music for interaction
Author(s): Yuval GevaAvailable online: 15 September 2023More LessAbstractMultimodal constructions which intertwine language and music are characteristic of the discourse of creative encounters among musicians. This interactional linguistic study reports on one such construction: the ‘music-taking-predicate’ (MTP) construction. MTP constructions consist of a projective verbal predicate, and a stretch of sung or played musical expression following it. Based on naturalistic video data of Hebrew-speaking musicians in rehearsals and production sessions, I show that instances of this construction emerge as formulae for the achievement of several interactional tasks integral to the process of joint music making.
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The pragmatics of advice-giving in the media discourse
Author(s): Chihsia TangAvailable online: 11 September 2023More LessAbstractThis study investigated how the gender of the contestants in TV talent competitions affects male and female judges’ management of their advice, exemplified by evaluative talks in two Taiwan-based talent contests. In addition to the pragmatic configuration of the advising acts, the internal and external modifiers of the advising speech events were also analyzed in an attempt to gain insights into whether and how the advice messages are instrumental in the construction of gender identities. Results showed that deviating from the stereotypical gendered style of communication, the female judges utilized significantly fewer politeness mechanisms than did their male counterparts to moderate their advice. Besides, the psychological needs and face want of the male and female advice-receivers remarkably influenced the discursive moves of the given advice comments. These findings suggested that in the public media discourse, the speech context outweighs the socially prescribed gendered styles of communication on one’s advice-giving behavior.
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‘I think’ in Swedish L1 and L2 group interactions
Author(s): Eveliina TolvanenAvailable online: 07 September 2023More LessAbstractThis cross-sectional study explores the phrase jag tänker ‘I think/cogitate’ in Swedish talk-in-interaction and compares it with two similar phrases, jag tycker ‘I think/find’ and jag tror ‘I think/believe/guess’. It consists of a quantitative overview of the three phrases and a qualitative, interactionally informed analysis of jag tänker in task-based group conversations with L1 and L2 speakers of Swedish. The results show that jag tänker has a stance-taking function in L1 interactions and projects more talk, which typically accounts for the reasoning behind the point the speaker is making. However, the L2 speakers do not use jag tänker as a stance-taking phrase; instead, they may deploy jag tror or jag tycker to project turns that accomplish similar actions to those that the L1 speakers accomplish with jag tänker.
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Creative metaphors and non-propositional effects
Author(s): Valandis BardzokasAvailable online: 17 August 2023More LessAbstractOver the last decade there has been growing relevance-theoretic interest in the interpretation of creative metaphors. Much of this interest has focused on non-propositional aspects of interpretation: mental image effects/emotive effects. Central to this enquiry is the following question: are non-propositional effects essential to the metaphorical interpretation process? The implications of answering this question are important, since, if the answer is positive, then the delivery of metaphorical interpretation depends, not only on utterance processing, but also on the hearer’s formation of mental images as well as emotive experience. Relevance-theoretic studies argue that mental images do not fulfill an essential role in the metaphorical interpretation process. While the supporting evidence is solid, it requires experimental substantiation. The current paper responds to this requirement, taking on board emotive effects, too, apart from mental images. Ultimately, the current work concludes that the role of non-propositional effects in metaphorical interpretation is not essential.
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Translating politeness on public notices with a directive function in Thessaloniki
Author(s): Christopher LeesAvailable online: 25 July 2023More LessAbstractThis paper examines notices with a directive function that have been translated from Greek into English in the public spaces of Thessaloniki. In particular, it explores the ways in which Greek politeness is expressed and how this politeness is rendered in the English translation of the original Greek texts. The paper uses photographic data collected in 2020. Using Brown and Levinson’s (1987) concept of face, the methodology used is a combination of the qualitative ethnographic approach employed in contemporary linguistic landscape research and Bourdieu’s habitus approach used in the sociology of translation. The analysis shows that the translations examined often retain aspects of Greek politeness strategies, affecting the message of the English target text to varying degrees.
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An investigation of the formation and pragmatic strategies of “xx-zi”
Author(s): Junfang Mu, Lixin Zhang and Yuyang ChenAvailable online: 25 July 2023More LessAbstractWith the stride of technology, new media and online communication bring innovative language phenomena to the fore, in particular, the spread of internet buzzwords. In 2021, the internet buzzword juejuezi gathered momentum on the internet. Enlightened by this online catchword, this paper investigates the popularity behind “xx-zi” and its three types of word-formation, then takes juejuezi derived from “adj.+zi” as the example, conducting a qualitative encoding and analysis of the posts sourced from Weibo based on NVivo 20. Additionally, the study examines the specific pragmatic strategies, such as, praise, compliant and irony, embedded in the posts for further explicating how individuals employ juejuezi to express a chain of connotations in online communication. Notably, the internet buzzword provides channels to mirror the discourse ecology of the internet era, the public’s attitudes and behaviors regarding to shifts of politics, economy and culture change, thus providing a supplement for further research on internet buzzwords.
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Notes on word order variation in Korean
Author(s): Chongwon Park and Jaehoon YeonAvailable online: 20 July 2023More LessAbstractThis article aims to develop an analysis of scrambling or word order variation in Korean from a pragmatic/cognitive perspective. Although extensive research has been carried out on this issue, most extant research attempts to provide analyses of the phenomenon by identifying grammatical features posited for syntactic operations. Unlike the previous research, we demonstrate that word order variation needs to be understood with respect to its communicative function; it is motivated by the speaker’s intention to convey information more effectively. It is emphasized that understanding the association between information structure and word order variation should be an essential task for the analysis of the latter phenomenon. We further discuss five conversational strategies that motivate non-canonical word orders, which include juxtaposition, backmasking, right dislocation, add-on, and floated quantifier strategies.
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Pragmatic markers in English and Italian film dialogue
Author(s): Liviana GalianoAvailable online: 04 July 2023More LessAbstractPragmatic markers are recognised to be a fundamental aspect of spoken language, in particular conversation, as they allow the processing of information within a specific context by providing the addressee with cues on how to interpret utterances. As far as audiovisual dialogue is concerned, pragmatic markers are considered as a hallmark of naturalness and orality which is fundamental to ensure the audience’s immersion in the world represented on screen. Thanks to both distributional and translation-oriented analysis of corpus data, the paper aims to compare the use of pragmatic markers in anglophone, dubbed Italian and original Italian film dialogues as well as highlight the strategies employed in translating English pragmatic markers into dubbed Italian.
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Modal particles in ironic utterances
Author(s): Holden Härtl and Jana-Maria ThimmAvailable online: 04 July 2023More LessAbstractThis study contributes to theorizing about the semantic characteristics of verbal irony. Specifically, we investigate the function of the modal particles ja (lit. ‘yes’) and aber (lit. ‘but’) that often occur in ironic utterances in German, cf. Das war aber ein aufregender Film (‘That was prt a thrilling movie’). Our main claim is that modal particles are used in ironic utterances to reflect the speaker’s intention to pretend surprise and produce a mockery effect by manifesting the utterance as an echo. Modal particles require some mutual knowledge to be contained in the common ground, and we link this notion to the interplay between echoic mention and pretense in interpreting an utterance as ironic. In an empirical approach to our claim, we report on results from an online questionnaire study, in which we test whether the presence of a modal particle leads to a higher perception of pretense in ironic reactions. While the data generally confirm our prediction, we found that only aber affects pretense perception but not ja, which can be explained by the former’s contrastive nature. The view we pursue implies that attitudinal content is a graded feature and that such a notion is applicable to surprise and pretense involved in verbal irony.
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