{"title":"Xie, Chaoqun: The Pragmatics of Internet Memes","authors":"Jixian Pang","doi":"10.1515/ip-2023-4006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ip-2023-4006","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":13669,"journal":{"name":"Intercultural Pragmatics","volume":"20 1","pages":"463 - 466"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45698538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The alleged universality of classic pragmatic paradigms has long been put into question (cf. Kecskés, István. 2014. Intercultural pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press), especially given its scarce applicability to cultures based on completely different sets of values: crucial components of social interaction such as face and politeness maxims cannot be taken for granted. Against this background, the aim of this paper is to use a comparative perspective to explore the differences in terms of forms of address used in Mandarin and English. First, the analysis will compare Anglo and Chinese pragmatics in the fields that are relevant to the choice of appropriate forms of address. Then, a selection of Chinese and English forms of address from a Chinese TV series available on YouTube will be examined to explain how they are deeply enrooted in the respective cultures and pragmatic systems, to what extent they can be translatable, and what this (un)translatability may entail for an international audience using English translation as their only reference.
{"title":"Exploring (un)translatability in pragmatics: Chinese and English forms of address in subtitles","authors":"D. Renna","doi":"10.1515/ip-2023-3005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ip-2023-3005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The alleged universality of classic pragmatic paradigms has long been put into question (cf. Kecskés, István. 2014. Intercultural pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press), especially given its scarce applicability to cultures based on completely different sets of values: crucial components of social interaction such as face and politeness maxims cannot be taken for granted. Against this background, the aim of this paper is to use a comparative perspective to explore the differences in terms of forms of address used in Mandarin and English. First, the analysis will compare Anglo and Chinese pragmatics in the fields that are relevant to the choice of appropriate forms of address. Then, a selection of Chinese and English forms of address from a Chinese TV series available on YouTube will be examined to explain how they are deeply enrooted in the respective cultures and pragmatic systems, to what extent they can be translatable, and what this (un)translatability may entail for an international audience using English translation as their only reference.","PeriodicalId":13669,"journal":{"name":"Intercultural Pragmatics","volume":"20 1","pages":"297 - 321"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46411046","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This essay presents an array of arguments demonstrating that truth is necessarily pragmatic. Evaluations of truth derive from human experience, from the individual’s weltanschauung which molds their point of view and ideological perspective. Consequently, within any community, there exist alternative truths. Traditional takes on truth are reviewed. The fuzziness of many truths is examined. The existence within the community of alternative, sometimes contradictory, truths is explicated and shown to be fairly common in practice, even though it can occasionally lead to social dissension. The essay expatiates on the alleged incontrovertibility of logical, mathematical, and scientific truths (supposedly true in all possible worlds) showing that they are necessarily subject to specific conditions which render the assessment pragmatic. In sum, Φ is true resolves into Φ functions as true under specific conditions a 1…n . Certainly, a hegemonic group within the community will often assert a preference for one truth over its alternatives, but that does not eliminate the existence of alternative truths within that community. The only way to manage this state of affairs is to admit that truth does not exist independent of human beings but is necessarily evaluated according to the set of perceptions, conceptions, and beliefs that constitute the individual’s weltanschauung at the time the judgment is made, such that different weltanschauungen often give rise to different judgments about what functions as true.
{"title":"Why truth is necessarily pragmatic","authors":"Keith Allan","doi":"10.1515/ip-2023-3003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ip-2023-3003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This essay presents an array of arguments demonstrating that truth is necessarily pragmatic. Evaluations of truth derive from human experience, from the individual’s weltanschauung which molds their point of view and ideological perspective. Consequently, within any community, there exist alternative truths. Traditional takes on truth are reviewed. The fuzziness of many truths is examined. The existence within the community of alternative, sometimes contradictory, truths is explicated and shown to be fairly common in practice, even though it can occasionally lead to social dissension. The essay expatiates on the alleged incontrovertibility of logical, mathematical, and scientific truths (supposedly true in all possible worlds) showing that they are necessarily subject to specific conditions which render the assessment pragmatic. In sum, Φ is true resolves into Φ functions as true under specific conditions a 1…n . Certainly, a hegemonic group within the community will often assert a preference for one truth over its alternatives, but that does not eliminate the existence of alternative truths within that community. The only way to manage this state of affairs is to admit that truth does not exist independent of human beings but is necessarily evaluated according to the set of perceptions, conceptions, and beliefs that constitute the individual’s weltanschauung at the time the judgment is made, such that different weltanschauungen often give rise to different judgments about what functions as true.","PeriodicalId":13669,"journal":{"name":"Intercultural Pragmatics","volume":"20 1","pages":"251 - 267"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48329904","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Irony is a mechanism that, at the same time, says and does not say. It is a case in which the speaker literally expresses a sense that is not what the speaker wants to communicate. It is a case of implicit echoic mention that conveys an attitude toward what is mentioned. Therefore, an utterance that, to be understood, needs contextual elements, meta-communicative elements and a mutual attribution of knowledge, intentions and affective states between speaker and hearer; the elaboration of which requires specific capacities – linguistics as well as cognitive – that allow to recognize the unsaid intentions of the speaker. Even if the ironic speaker expresses an attitude and, in doing this, s/he is ‘honest’ (s/he wants the hearer to recognize the falsehood or the irrelevance of the expressed proposition and to grasp the attitude towards it), most of the time, ironic expressions are sentences that are apparently false. To be able to distinguish between irony and lying, the hearer must determine that the ironic speaker wants the listener to disbelieve the statement, whereas the liar wants the listener to believe just what is said. Distinguishing between a false observation said with a misleading intent and an untrue sentence proffered/uttered with an ironic intent, requires a right attribution of a second-order belief, but it also requires the capacity of epistemic vigilance, an ability that allows us to evaluate the accuracy of the content of the information provided by others, and to discriminate the reliability of the source of information. The complex abilities, required by irony elaboration, make irony learning during childhood particularly difficult. Acquisition of irony comprehension is more complex than any other form of non-literal speech and, during growth, it reaches its complete development later than many other complex linguistic aspects, only about at the age of ten-twelve. The article wants to show how difficulties of irony elaboration in children are linked not only to the full development of meta-representational abilities, but in addition and especially to the development of epistemic vigilance.
{"title":"When children acquire irony: The role of epistemic vigilance","authors":"Caterina Scianna","doi":"10.1515/ip-2023-3006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ip-2023-3006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Irony is a mechanism that, at the same time, says and does not say. It is a case in which the speaker literally expresses a sense that is not what the speaker wants to communicate. It is a case of implicit echoic mention that conveys an attitude toward what is mentioned. Therefore, an utterance that, to be understood, needs contextual elements, meta-communicative elements and a mutual attribution of knowledge, intentions and affective states between speaker and hearer; the elaboration of which requires specific capacities – linguistics as well as cognitive – that allow to recognize the unsaid intentions of the speaker. Even if the ironic speaker expresses an attitude and, in doing this, s/he is ‘honest’ (s/he wants the hearer to recognize the falsehood or the irrelevance of the expressed proposition and to grasp the attitude towards it), most of the time, ironic expressions are sentences that are apparently false. To be able to distinguish between irony and lying, the hearer must determine that the ironic speaker wants the listener to disbelieve the statement, whereas the liar wants the listener to believe just what is said. Distinguishing between a false observation said with a misleading intent and an untrue sentence proffered/uttered with an ironic intent, requires a right attribution of a second-order belief, but it also requires the capacity of epistemic vigilance, an ability that allows us to evaluate the accuracy of the content of the information provided by others, and to discriminate the reliability of the source of information. The complex abilities, required by irony elaboration, make irony learning during childhood particularly difficult. Acquisition of irony comprehension is more complex than any other form of non-literal speech and, during growth, it reaches its complete development later than many other complex linguistic aspects, only about at the age of ten-twelve. The article wants to show how difficulties of irony elaboration in children are linked not only to the full development of meta-representational abilities, but in addition and especially to the development of epistemic vigilance.","PeriodicalId":13669,"journal":{"name":"Intercultural Pragmatics","volume":"20 1","pages":"323 - 343"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41886667","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This paper addresses the encoding and recovery of an implicit adjectival gender modifier in the statements on political citizenship in most Hispanic American constitutions before female suffrage was instituted. The modifier, which was intended to exclude women, was straightforwardly recovered because citizenship was at the time an exclusive right of men. Eventually, however, linguistic-legal indeterminacy arose when some judges and legislators manipulated a language-system fact, i.e., the dual meaning of masculine gender (marked and unmarked), to argue that the constitutional norm for citizenship included women. The modifier is analyzed in reference to the concepts of explicature and impliciture, which trace the distinction between explicit and implicit content in ways compatible with my analysis. Neither of the two concepts comprehensively accounts for the encoding and recovery of the modifier. The integral linguistic model of Eugenio Coseriu does so.
{"title":"The concepts of explicature, impliciture and the Coserian invariant/variant distinction in Spanish legal utterances","authors":"Rina Villars","doi":"10.1515/ip-2023-3004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ip-2023-3004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper addresses the encoding and recovery of an implicit adjectival gender modifier in the statements on political citizenship in most Hispanic American constitutions before female suffrage was instituted. The modifier, which was intended to exclude women, was straightforwardly recovered because citizenship was at the time an exclusive right of men. Eventually, however, linguistic-legal indeterminacy arose when some judges and legislators manipulated a language-system fact, i.e., the dual meaning of masculine gender (marked and unmarked), to argue that the constitutional norm for citizenship included women. The modifier is analyzed in reference to the concepts of explicature and impliciture, which trace the distinction between explicit and implicit content in ways compatible with my analysis. Neither of the two concepts comprehensively accounts for the encoding and recovery of the modifier. The integral linguistic model of Eugenio Coseriu does so.","PeriodicalId":13669,"journal":{"name":"Intercultural Pragmatics","volume":"20 1","pages":"269 - 295"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48958011","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This paper argues that impure direct/mixed quotation – that is, translated (or repaired, improved) direct or mixed quotation – has something interesting to tell us about how quotations ordinarily function. It forces us to focus on two general quotational features. (i) Quotation is not a purely verbal phenomenon, its intuitive content exceeds the limits of what is linguistically articulated; (ii) it presupposes a cooperation between two human beings: the quoter, who performs a quotation, and the addressee of that quotation. In the framework of an inscriptional analysis of direct and mixed quotation, inspired by Goodman’s approach to pure quotation, such a cooperation is described in terms of a pragmatic process of specification of the conventional meaning of a quotation, which consists of interpreting ostensively defined quotation predicates.
{"title":"The semantics and pragmatics of impure direct/mixed quotation","authors":"L. Pavone","doi":"10.1515/ip-2023-3002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ip-2023-3002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper argues that impure direct/mixed quotation – that is, translated (or repaired, improved) direct or mixed quotation – has something interesting to tell us about how quotations ordinarily function. It forces us to focus on two general quotational features. (i) Quotation is not a purely verbal phenomenon, its intuitive content exceeds the limits of what is linguistically articulated; (ii) it presupposes a cooperation between two human beings: the quoter, who performs a quotation, and the addressee of that quotation. In the framework of an inscriptional analysis of direct and mixed quotation, inspired by Goodman’s approach to pure quotation, such a cooperation is described in terms of a pragmatic process of specification of the conventional meaning of a quotation, which consists of interpreting ostensively defined quotation predicates.","PeriodicalId":13669,"journal":{"name":"Intercultural Pragmatics","volume":"20 1","pages":"239 - 250"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48383872","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract In this article I analyze Kar and Radin’s critique of boilerplate text in contract. The problems identified in boilerplate are significant. I then describe the test that they offer to distinguish between proper contract and “pseudo-contract” in boilerplate. The test is constructed upon the use of Gricean Maxims slightly modified for the context of contract law. Next, Karl Llewellyn’s test for boilerplate is described. Ultimately, through the use of a couple of examples it is argued that Llewellyn’s test is a better option. Even with this result, much of the Kar and Radin critique of boilerplate is significant and valuable.
{"title":"Boilerplate and contractual language: Pseudo-contract or blanket assent?","authors":"B. Butler","doi":"10.1515/ip-2023-3001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ip-2023-3001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this article I analyze Kar and Radin’s critique of boilerplate text in contract. The problems identified in boilerplate are significant. I then describe the test that they offer to distinguish between proper contract and “pseudo-contract” in boilerplate. The test is constructed upon the use of Gricean Maxims slightly modified for the context of contract law. Next, Karl Llewellyn’s test for boilerplate is described. Ultimately, through the use of a couple of examples it is argued that Llewellyn’s test is a better option. Even with this result, much of the Kar and Radin critique of boilerplate is significant and valuable.","PeriodicalId":13669,"journal":{"name":"Intercultural Pragmatics","volume":"20 1","pages":"217 - 237"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47727035","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Complaining constitutes a face-threatening and intricate speech act for native and non-native speakers of a language. Complaining implies reacting with discontentment to an act performed by the complainee, who is often urged to redress the predicament. In this context, pragmatic skills are vital because, unless endowed with an appropriate pragmatic repertoire and the corresponding language adequacy, speakers may jeopardize the communication process. Written complaints by non-native students have attracted scholarly attention in different contexts. However, written complaints by Spanish EFL students have been mostly neglected to date. Likewise, the influence of the writer’s gender on how complaints are performed has rendered some remarkable albeit scant studies. This study addresses the moves, strategies and substrategies deployed by Spanish EFL students in their emails of complaint, specifically looking into how the variable of gender influences their formulation of emails of complaint. For this purpose, emails of complaint of 90 L2 Spanish students with a certified C1 level were analyzed. Results show that students often transfer substrategies from their L1 and tend to delay the statement of the complaint in favor of lengthy openers, in contrast to native speakers. Furthermore, this preference for over-mitigation and over-politeness is especially employed by female students.
{"title":"“I would like to complain”: A study of the moves and strategies employed by Spanish EFL learners in formal complaint e-mails","authors":"Carmen Maíz-Arévalo, M. Méndez-García","doi":"10.1515/ip-2023-2003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ip-2023-2003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Complaining constitutes a face-threatening and intricate speech act for native and non-native speakers of a language. Complaining implies reacting with discontentment to an act performed by the complainee, who is often urged to redress the predicament. In this context, pragmatic skills are vital because, unless endowed with an appropriate pragmatic repertoire and the corresponding language adequacy, speakers may jeopardize the communication process. Written complaints by non-native students have attracted scholarly attention in different contexts. However, written complaints by Spanish EFL students have been mostly neglected to date. Likewise, the influence of the writer’s gender on how complaints are performed has rendered some remarkable albeit scant studies. This study addresses the moves, strategies and substrategies deployed by Spanish EFL students in their emails of complaint, specifically looking into how the variable of gender influences their formulation of emails of complaint. For this purpose, emails of complaint of 90 L2 Spanish students with a certified C1 level were analyzed. Results show that students often transfer substrategies from their L1 and tend to delay the statement of the complaint in favor of lengthy openers, in contrast to native speakers. Furthermore, this preference for over-mitigation and over-politeness is especially employed by female students.","PeriodicalId":13669,"journal":{"name":"Intercultural Pragmatics","volume":"20 1","pages":"161 - 197"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45854164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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