Journal of Pragmatics最新文献

Following recent efforts by Acton (2021) and Eckert (2019) to bridge gaps between pragmatics and sociolinguistics, this study looks at the interplay between pragmatic-functional factors and social indexicalities lying behind discourse marker selection in multilingual settings. The case study it proposes is non-English discourse markers in Namibian English, a postcolonial English variety set in a multilingual context. The study's methodological approach proposes to make Schneider's (2021) variational pragmatic framework more compatible with studying variation in multilingual settings by looking at multilingual speech data elicited from informants observed across contexts differentiated according to ethnolinguistic background distribution. The study finds that some discourse markers are overtly or covertly transferred along with their pragmatic functions across indigenous languages, Afrikaans, and English. It also finds that social indexicalities mobilized for social persona construction constitute a potent if not overarching factor in discourse marker selection: As it turns out, Coloured Afrikaans discourse markers rather than indigenous or English ones constitute the common core of non-English discourse markers that symbolically mark specific Namibian English varieties as simultaneously ‘Black’ and urban rather than as ‘traditional ethnic’ or ‘White’.

Based on the analysis of a linguistic corpus, this study uses relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson, 1986/1995) to demonstrate that the Tunisian Arabic particle ha:, which has never received any research attention, acts as an attitudinal marker in addition to its vocative function. Namely, ha: is restricted to utterances in which the speaker is expressing negative emotion or a subtype of positive emotion that can only be directed at the addressee. The data analysis shows that, unlike its relatively unmarked and well-studied counterpart ya:, ha: is restricted in terms of its frequency of distribution and the types of speaker emotions and attitudes expressed in the utterance in which it occurs. This study argues that ha: encodes a procedure which instructs the hearer to recognize the speaker's emotion or attitude expressed toward them in the utterance. The particle ha: therefore, serves as an explicit additional guarantee of relevance that encourages the hearer to look for additional contextual assumptions in order to achieve the speaker's desired interpretation.

This study examines paternal advice in the ancient Arab world through a socio-pragmatic analysis of 159 pieces of advice from fathers to sons between the 7th and 10th centuries CE. The article identifies directness as a predominant feature in these communications, attributed to the intimate father–son relationship, paternal dominance, justifications for advice, and the inherent nature of the advice topics. The closeness between father and son, emphasized by the frequent use of “Oh my son(s)," allows for advice without social veiling, reflecting the Islamic duty of guidance. Power dynamics and the expectation of direct communication underscore the traditional Arab social structure. Justifications accompanying advice in the dataset highlight its acceptability, while the subjects of religion, relationships, and science encourage directness in the discourse. This analysis reveals that directness in advice-giving conveys deeply held cultural and religious values, emphasizing community and mutual responsibility, and showcases the role of clear communication in maintaining societal cohesion across generations.

This study investigates the speech act of refusals in the context of English as a lingua franca (ELF), with a focus on the strategies, internal modifications, and preference organization of refusals. Fifteen Chinese speakers of English and 15 Indonesian English speakers engaged in dyadic role-plays involving requests and refusals. Results show that when rejecting requests proposed by the Indonesian participants, Chinese English speakers heavily used indirect refusal strategies, such as explanations, alternatives, and apologies. These refusals often included internal modifications, particularly linguistic downgraders, to mitigate the force of their refusals. Sequentially, Chinese English speakers commonly organized their refusals as dispreferred, deferring the refusals via a cluster of interactional devices, including inter-turn gaps, turn-initial delays, anticipatory accounts, and pro forma agreements. The findings suggest that ELF refusals and ELF interactions are not necessarily direct with minimal mitigation as claimed in previous research (e.g., House, 2008; Murray, 2012), and ELF speakers, at least for Chinese English speakers, do linguistically and interactionally engage with interpersonal work despite the generally preferred communicative style of transparency and directness in ELF interactions. Based on the findings, pedagogical implications on ELF pragmatics instruction are also discussed.

In this paper we link between two scholarly traditions that share the goal of understanding how people accomplish the achievement of living together: linguistic-politeness and diplomacy. We look at a specific speech event—presidential introductory conversations during credential ceremonies, in which the interlocutors are simultaneously talking on behalf of themselves and the states they represent. On the basis of 23 introductory conversations at Israel’s presidential residence. We aim to understand how good relations are cultivated in diplomatic conversations and the resources and strategies hosting presidents and foreign ambassadors employ to establish amicable interpersonal and interstate relations. The infusion of elite discourse, institutional discourse, and initial interactions brought forth in our study a gamut of bonding strategies applied in the process of rapport management between state representatives. The president and ambassadors did their best to avoid sensitive issues and managed the attending audience as a resource for enhancing interpersonal relations, advancing the interaction, and solving problems at both the interstate and interpersonal levels. In the Conclusion we underline the importance of analyzing actual conversations between individuals who simultaneously embody themselves and their states in order to understand how relationships between large social entities are managed.

The first stage in grammaticalization is often an enrichment of pragmatic meaning. If a new form is more ‘extravagant’ or ‘expressive’, it may have a competitive advantage. The grammaticalizing form described here is a primitive ‘do’-support construction used to make questions, in an Italian dialect spoken in an isolated sub-Alpine valley. Living speakers describe why and when they would use ‘do’-support over the simpler, main-verb alternative. Logical meanings, which include an answer presupposition and perfective viewpoint on the event, suggest that the ‘do’-support form is a syntactically embedded, and pragmatically indirect question (Swinburne, 2021). The expressive meanings described here are: 1) those demonstrating prior thought (conventional presuppositions due to the syntactic structure); 2) subjective meanings expressing emotion and engaging the interlocutor (conventional implicatures of ‘do’); and 3) meanings exploiting indirectness for reasons of politeness (conversational implicatures). With ‘do’-support, the speaker is being polite and making an educated guess of the likely answer, while leaving open the possibility of being wrong. In the small, tight-knit, isolated communities of Val Camonica, politeness to neighbours is essential for long-term community cohesion. The politeness meaning has likely driven the grammaticalization.

This study explores pre-modern Chinese intellectuals’ identity construction through the choice of self-referring forms in their letters home. Based on a case study of Hu Shih's letters home, it categorizes the self-referring forms he used and self-identities he constructed, and further investigates the underlying sociocultural factors. It shows that Hu Shih employed four categories of self-referring forms, namely first-person pronouns, kinship terms, names, nicknames, and pen names, and appositive expressions. With these forms of self-reference, he constructed himself as a kin member, an independent person, and a scholar. Hu's construction of the first self-identity might have been influenced by the traditional family ethics and ideology prevalent within Chinese social structure, whereas that of the other two could be ascribed to the emerging social changes at the historical turning point, and scholarly principles. The study provides a new perspective for understanding traditional Chinese intellectuals’ letters home in the pre-modern society of China.

The current paper aims to discuss the impact of pre-posing a subordinate clause (as in connective p, q) on the overall meaning of a conjunction. This issue has traditionally been explored from a functional perspective and, more specifically, in relation to ‘topic’, ‘framework’ or other related notions. The current work reveals that, among the inadequacies that a topic-based account presents, it essentially falls short of a context-sensitive and unified perspective. In response to these inadequacies, a relevance-theoretic approach is proposed on procedural grounds. More specifically, it is argued that a sentence-initial subordinate clause, or, more accurately, the entire context associated with it, serves as evidence for the delivery of procedure r, namely the inference that the main-clause-proposition that may follow will be relevant to the foregoing pre-posed context. From a communicative point of view, the procedural impact of sentence-initial subordinate clauses is justified as a useful rhetorical instrument that serves to manipulate the hearer’s epistemic assessment of the main-clause-proposition as genuinely relevant to the context associated with the (pre-posed) subordinate-clause proposition.