Pragmatics - Online First

This study examines the pragmatic functions of Longxi Qiang interrogative pronoun lê (‘what’) in natural conversation. Based on approximately ten hours of transcribed data, we found that lê is used in question and non-question functions such as filler, reversed polarity question marker, attention attractor, negative stance marker, non-specific referent, general extender, and universal term. Most instances of lê in the data serve various interactional functions rather than seeking information. The non-question functions of lê are related to negative, rather than positive, meaning; for example, negative evaluation, stance, or providing little to no information of the referents under discussion.

Corpus-based research on the “filled pauses” um and uh has shown that um is gaining frequency relative to uh, with um used more frequently by women and younger people. There has been some speculation that the rise of um is linked to a new discourse function or meaning, but this has not yet been fully substantiated. This paper approaches the problem from a perceptual angle, reporting the results of two experiments investigating participants’ judgments of the indexicalities of the “filled pauses” um and uh in two media: instant messaging and speech. Participants’ qualitative and quantitative responses suggest that readers and listeners associate the use of um with hesitancy, femininity, politeness, and thoughtfulness, but that uh is primarily associated just with hesitancy. I argue that these indexicalities may be linked to the ongoing change, with um indexing a potentially more desirable type of hesitation than uh.

This study examines the possible intended references of unidentified initiators — agents or experiencers — of Spanish infinitives in a corpus of digital news texts and readers’ comments to them. Four basic referential interpretations are discussed: external references, generic ones, the audience, and the writer. They largely depend on contextual elements functioning as viewpoint builders and including the semantics of the predicate, spatial and temporal locatives, grammatical marks of the direct participants, and other defocusing constructions. Quantitative analysis reveals patterns of co-occurrence between the referential categories and the different types of viewpoint builders. Besides, such references are unequally distributed across the two kinds of textual sequences considered. The results underscore the complexity of the interpretive processes involved in reference assignment. While all uses of the infinitive are semantically unified by its function of construing events as ungrounded, they can produce quite different pragmatic outcomes in interaction with contextual and situational features.

This paper aims to examine the conceived self-identities by Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) doctors in the digitalized scenarios of healthcare. With the textual posts collected from Sina Microblog, this study systematically analyzed 474 pieces of narrative posts (97,737 Chinese characters) of TCM doctors who were officially registered on Sina Microblog. Results indicate that TCM doctors normally envisaged three types of self-identities on Sina Microblog: modern professionals, tradition defenders, and cultural inheritors. Specifically, solution-oriented, emotion-oriented, and legitimation-oriented strategies were discursively adopted by some TCM doctors to express their acceptance of digitalization, whereas various linguistic devices were employed to resist digitalization in TCM, such as analogies, rhetorical questions, and the usage of attitudinal markers. This study contributes to existing knowledge of the evolution of TCM through digitalization by pragmatically examining the identity work of TCM doctors under online circumstances in Oriental scenarios.

This article examines the system of address forms in Contemporary Hasidic Yiddish, as well as the underlying principles of social hierarchy and cultural values as encoded in their grammatical structures. Field research in Hasidic communities of the UK, USA, Israel, and Canada reveals a tripartite address system, not-known in the pre-WWII varieties of Yiddish. I argue that two options for polite address encode fundamentally distinct social meanings, rather than represent two levels of formality: third person nominal address manifests deference, while 2pl pronominal address signifies consideration. Finally, I discuss the origin of the tripartite system of T/V distinction in Yiddish, suggesting a hypothesis that the third person address as a full-scaled address mode is a recent development in Hasidic Yiddish that took shape in the second half of the twentieth century.

Previous research has extensively examined corporate apologies as webcare in public settings. However, it has paid less attention to apologies made directly to the public despite their potential to evoke responses that reflect social expectations. This study examines corporate public apology strategies and social media users’ follow-up comments, specifically focusing on impolite comments and their underlying rationale. The findings reveal that, despite employing various apology strategies in response to food safety incidents, corporations continue to receive criticism and impolite comments online. These comments frequently reference the moral value of 良心 liángxīn ‘conscience’, which serves as a moral ground for public criticism. Specifically, these comments highlight a set of moral expectations constituting liángxīn: being responsible, being honest, avoiding being profit-centric, and caring for customers. Such impolite comments function as a rite of moral aggression aimed at reaffirming and restoring moral orders. This study enriches our understanding of public responses to corporate apologies and underscores the role of online criticism in shaping societal norms.

In recent years, the vocative tío/a has attracted specific attention because of its frequency and salient pragmatic functions in everyday conversation in European Spanish. This paper presents a conversation-analytical approach to the feminine variant, tía, in extracts from a single conversation of almost twenty minutes among young women friends, who focus on the telling of stories of a personal nature and employ this form as a vocative around thirty times. The analysis demonstrates that the vocative tía has a central role in managing and negotiating affiliation in the focused interaction, highlighting: (a) uses to mitigate disaffiliation in the mid-telling and to friendly manage oppositional stances; (b) uses as a strategy to prepare the ground for affiliation in the narrative climax; (c) uses to mobilize affiliation after emotive assessments and to accentuate reciprocity by the recipient’s matching use; and (d) uses to pursue affiliation in expansions of storytelling.

It is well-established that amateur sports teams constitute a site of pervasive contradictory dynamics, with affable solidarity and camaraderie offset by ubiquitous competition between players. While these qualities have been identified in sport psychology and sociology, their in-situ accomplishment through players’ endogenous interpersonal relations has not yet been explored. In this article, I explore this issue, investigating how players in an amateur Australian football (soccer) team utilise conversational teasing to enact relational camaraderie and competition in subtle, nuanced ways. Examining naturally occurring data collected using ethnographic methods and analysed through a CA-informed lens, I demonstrate the endogenous co-constitution of these relational qualities, connected to the negotiation of teasing sequences. In this way, the in-situ accomplishment of camaraderie and competition as a relational dialectic, in line with the players’ dynamic interpersonal relationships, is elucidated.

Facing the increasing enrolment pressure, most Chinese universities launch enrolment posts on WeChat. Yet the way posts are written is under-researched. This study analyses metadiscourse resources in thirty Chinese university enrolment posts with the purpose of examining how Chinese universities promote themselves. The findings suggest that Chinese universities attempt to construct positive rapport with prospective students by means of metadiscourse resources. The posts extol universities with attitude markers, hedges and boosters, create intimacy with prospective students with self-mentions and reader-pronouns, and invite readers with reader pronouns, directives and attitude markers. The study suggests that Chinese universities present a paradoxical image, being approachable and superior to readers. The discourse affordance of WeChat, promotional culture in higher education, the traditional identity of the university and its affiliation to the government work together to contribute to the discourse strategies used in the enrolment posts.