In this paper, we report on how authors of academic writing in Chinese (AWC) refer to themselves as single authors in the area of language studies. We find that AWC writers rely on the 1st-person plural 我们 women “we,” 3rd-person NPs such as 作者/笔者 zuozhe/bizhe “this author,” and inanimate NPs such as 本文 benwen “this article/paper” for self-reference. Based on these findings and subsequent surveys of journal style guides and interviews of authors, we propose that (1) these self-referring expressions are a set of conventions; (2) the motivation for these conventions is modesty, a deep-routed value of Chinese society; and (3) these expressions serve as indexicals to the writers’ identity of a modest scholar in the particular discursive context: the genre of academic writing. By so doing, our work links language use to social values, to identity studies, as well as to genre analysis, thus contributing to the literature in all these fields of investigation.
{"title":"Conventions of author self-reference in Chinese academic writing","authors":"Rong Chen, Da-mei Yang","doi":"10.1075/ps.19065.che","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.19065.che","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this paper, we report on how authors of academic writing in Chinese (AWC) refer to themselves as single authors\u0000 in the area of language studies. We find that AWC writers rely on the 1st-person plural 我们\u0000 women “we,” 3rd-person NPs such as 作者/笔者 zuozhe/bizhe “this author,” and inanimate NPs such as\u0000 本文 benwen “this\u0000 article/paper” for self-reference. Based on these findings and subsequent surveys of journal style guides and interviews of\u0000 authors, we propose that (1) these self-referring expressions are a set of conventions; (2) the motivation for these conventions\u0000 is modesty, a deep-routed value of Chinese society; and (3) these expressions serve as indexicals to the writers’ identity of a\u0000 modest scholar in the particular discursive context: the genre of academic writing. By so doing, our work links language use to\u0000 social values, to identity studies, as well as to genre analysis, thus contributing to the literature in all these fields of\u0000 investigation.","PeriodicalId":44036,"journal":{"name":"Pragmatics and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47133397","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article seeks to explore the mechanisms of holding others accountable for a perceived deviation from moral order through public complaints on Chinese social media as well as the influences of emotional stance and social positioning when people perceive a breach of the moral order and try to restore it. Our data consists of a transcribed complaint narrative (CN) widely deemed morally transgressive, and a corpus of web-based news comments (WNC), displaying public counter-offensive actions to the CN. A contextualized discourse analysis reveals that abundant context-spanning impoliteness formulae in WNC are strategies for constructing collective identities and magnifying the condemnation of immorality. In the process of moral order appeal, using various emotive impoliteness formulae appear to be a situated norm.
{"title":"“A tour guide losing her cool”","authors":"C. Xie, Y. Tong","doi":"10.1075/ps.20003.xie","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.20003.xie","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article seeks to explore the mechanisms of holding others accountable for a perceived deviation from moral order through public complaints on Chinese social media as well as the influences of emotional stance and social positioning when people perceive a breach of the moral order and try to restore it. Our data consists of a transcribed complaint narrative (CN) widely deemed morally transgressive, and a corpus of web-based news comments (WNC), displaying public counter-offensive actions to the CN. A contextualized discourse analysis reveals that abundant context-spanning impoliteness formulae in WNC are strategies for constructing collective identities and magnifying the condemnation of immorality. In the process of moral order appeal, using various emotive impoliteness formulae appear to be a situated norm.","PeriodicalId":44036,"journal":{"name":"Pragmatics and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42203827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This qualitative research explores the differences in the interpretation of novel veiling and concealing euphemisms from a relevance-theoretic perspective. I argue that the relevance of an utterance containing a novel veiling euphemism is established (1) via the adjustment of its linguistically encoded meaning so that it communicates the meaning encoded by a dispreferred expression, which is derived as an explicature, or (2) via its linguistically encoded meaning, derived as an explicature, and the meaning encoded by a dispreferred expression, recovered as a strong implicature. The relevance of an utterance containing a novel concealing euphemism is established via its linguistically encoded meaning, recovered as an explicature, and via weak implicatures. The recovery of weakly implicit content is not essential for inferring the speaker’s meaning.
{"title":"Novel veiling and concealing euphemisms in political discourse","authors":"T. Golubeva","doi":"10.1075/ps.21097.gol","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.21097.gol","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This qualitative research explores the differences in the interpretation of novel veiling and concealing euphemisms from a relevance-theoretic perspective. I argue that the relevance of an utterance containing a novel veiling euphemism is established (1) via the adjustment of its linguistically encoded meaning so that it communicates the meaning encoded by a dispreferred expression, which is derived as an explicature, or (2) via its linguistically encoded meaning, derived as an explicature, and the meaning encoded by a dispreferred expression, recovered as a strong implicature. The relevance of an utterance containing a novel concealing euphemism is established via its linguistically encoded meaning, recovered as an explicature, and via weak implicatures. The recovery of weakly implicit content is not essential for inferring the speaker’s meaning.","PeriodicalId":44036,"journal":{"name":"Pragmatics and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-04-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43619660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Intertextuality refers to the quality that connects the author and the reader within a single text or, more broadly, the relationship between texts. This study considered the author’s implicit textual intention and the expected effect on the text reader to analyze intertextuality. This study’s subject was the news text from the Russian news program Vesti Nedeli. The motivation behind this study was that anchor briefings are often used in news reports and that the anchor’s value judgments are often highlighted. Using previous researchers’ framing and orientation criteria, I examined how these factors manifested themselves in the news text under investigation. Furthermore, I proposed additional analysis criteria for strategic exposure and metaphor usage. Strategic exposure refers to empowering the text’s development and the text producer’s logic by intentionally exposing a specific scene, whereas metaphors emphasize an object’s positive or negative connotations by using a specific image.
{"title":"A study on the intertextuality of Russian media","authors":"Na-young Kim","doi":"10.1075/ps.22055.kim","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.22055.kim","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Intertextuality refers to the quality that connects the author and the reader within a single text or, more broadly, the relationship between texts. This study considered the author’s implicit textual intention and the expected effect on the text reader to analyze intertextuality. This study’s subject was the news text from the Russian news program Vesti Nedeli. The motivation behind this study was that anchor briefings are often used in news reports and that the anchor’s value judgments are often highlighted. Using previous researchers’ framing and orientation criteria, I examined how these factors manifested themselves in the news text under investigation. Furthermore, I proposed additional analysis criteria for strategic exposure and metaphor usage. Strategic exposure refers to empowering the text’s development and the text producer’s logic by intentionally exposing a specific scene, whereas metaphors emphasize an object’s positive or negative connotations by using a specific image.","PeriodicalId":44036,"journal":{"name":"Pragmatics and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47290125","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Previous media studies have largely examined the media construction of ‘leftover women’ in the Chinese-medium news media that are pervaded by patriarchal content. Yet, little attention has been given to the thematic content surrounding leftover women in the Chinese English-medium news media which seem to be more liberal in their stance. To fill this niche, this study employs a key keyword analysis to examine the dominant thematic concepts related to leftover women in the Chinese English-medium news media. The findings illustrate that the key keywords in the news reports belong to three thematic categories, namely social actors and attributes, dating activities and relationships, and other social matters. These thematic categories are intertwined with one another to construct the overall representations of leftover women suggesting ideological implications for both patriarchy and egalitarianism. The usefulness of employing corpus techniques to examine overarching themes in gender representations is also highlighted in this study.
{"title":"Representations of ‘leftover women’ in the Chinese English-medium newspapers","authors":"Yating Yu, Phoenix W. Y. Lam","doi":"10.1075/ps.20073.yu","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.20073.yu","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Previous media studies have largely examined the media construction of ‘leftover women’ in the Chinese-medium news media that are pervaded by patriarchal content. Yet, little attention has been given to the thematic content surrounding leftover women in the Chinese English-medium news media which seem to be more liberal in their stance. To fill this niche, this study employs a key keyword analysis to examine the dominant thematic concepts related to leftover women in the Chinese English-medium news media. The findings illustrate that the key keywords in the news reports belong to three thematic categories, namely social actors and attributes, dating activities and relationships, and other social matters. These thematic categories are intertwined with one another to construct the overall representations of leftover women suggesting ideological implications for both patriarchy and egalitarianism. The usefulness of employing corpus techniques to examine overarching themes in gender representations is also highlighted in this study.","PeriodicalId":44036,"journal":{"name":"Pragmatics and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48038402","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
At present, Epistemics is a popular theory in Western conversation analysis, but few scholars investigate the responses to the advice resistance on phone-ins from the perspective of Epistemics. This paper explores the responses to the advice resistance on Chinese phone-ins of family problem counseling from the perspective of Epistemics. It is found that when responding to the caller’s advice resistance, the host often implements two conversation practices, such as maintaining his/her original higher epistemic status or constructing higher epistemic status in another epistemic domain. These practices are consistent with the possibility of the host’s knowledge orientation to strong self-confidence in his/her own professional knowledge but the lack of confidence in the caller’s relevant knowledge. This study can provide enlightenment for the smooth development of advice interaction on phone-ins of family problem counseling and expand the application scope of Epistemics.
{"title":"An epistemic interpretation of responses to advice resistance on Chinese phone-ins of family problem counseling","authors":"Z. Peng","doi":"10.1075/ps.22032.pen","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.22032.pen","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000At present, Epistemics is a popular theory in Western conversation analysis, but few scholars investigate the responses to the advice resistance on phone-ins from the perspective of Epistemics. This paper explores the responses to the advice resistance on Chinese phone-ins of family problem counseling from the perspective of Epistemics. It is found that when responding to the caller’s advice resistance, the host often implements two conversation practices, such as maintaining his/her original higher epistemic status or constructing higher epistemic status in another epistemic domain. These practices are consistent with the possibility of the host’s knowledge orientation to strong self-confidence in his/her own professional knowledge but the lack of confidence in the caller’s relevant knowledge. This study can provide enlightenment for the smooth development of advice interaction on phone-ins of family problem counseling and expand the application scope of Epistemics.","PeriodicalId":44036,"journal":{"name":"Pragmatics and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48028979","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Speech acts in CMC (Computer Mediated Communication) have been receiving increasing attention in recent years. This study attempted to make a cross-cultural comparison of Chinese and American online complaints of restaurants from the perspective of speech act structure in relation to face management. In spite of likeness in the general taxonomy of retrospective and prospective speech acts between the two corpora, addressivity appeared to be a strong factor affecting how face was managed in the specific construction of complaints as speech act sets in the Chinese data set, while such a discrepancy was absent from the American reviews where the face of restaurants and fellow consumers was not handled with much distinction and discretion. These findings in terms of the level of sensitivity and adaptation to the context seem to imply that the generally-recognized distinction of high-context vs. low-context between the two cultures is also manifested in online reviews.
{"title":"A contrastive study of Chinese and American online complaints","authors":"Ming-Chen Wei","doi":"10.1075/ps.21059.wei","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.21059.wei","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Speech acts in CMC (Computer Mediated Communication) have been receiving increasing attention in recent years.\u0000 This study attempted to make a cross-cultural comparison of Chinese and American online complaints of restaurants from the\u0000 perspective of speech act structure in relation to face management. In spite of likeness in the general taxonomy of retrospective\u0000 and prospective speech acts between the two corpora, addressivity appeared to be a strong factor affecting how face was managed\u0000 in the specific construction of complaints as speech act sets in the Chinese data set, while such a discrepancy was absent from\u0000 the American reviews where the face of restaurants and fellow consumers was not handled with much distinction and discretion.\u0000 These findings in terms of the level of sensitivity and adaptation to the context seem to imply that the generally-recognized\u0000 distinction of high-context vs. low-context between the two cultures is also manifested in online reviews.","PeriodicalId":44036,"journal":{"name":"Pragmatics and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45633885","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In Spanish, tener que and haber que + infinitive are modal periphrases that convey deontic meanings. The present investigation analyzes these periphrases as variants used in diverse communicative settings by different kinds of participants, acting as either speakers/writers or addressees. Tener que + infinitive tends to appear in those contexts where a more striking implication or unavoidable recommendation is needed. Haber que + infinitive is used more in a wide range of genres promoting a desubjectivizing-deontic meaning. As for the sex/gender of the participants, men more frequently use tener que + infinitive, whereas women tend to employ haber que + infinitive. The latter feature was also found to be significant when the sex/gender of the addressee is unknown; also, tener que + infinitive resulted more frequently in texts to be read or listened by women. The sociolinguistic distribution of the meanings conveyed by each periphrasis helps to delineate communicative styles based on the objectivity-subjectivity dimension.
{"title":"Variation and society","authors":"M. J. Serrano","doi":"10.1075/ps.20040.ser","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.20040.ser","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In Spanish, tener que and haber que + infinitive are modal periphrases that\u0000 convey deontic meanings. The present investigation analyzes these periphrases as variants used in diverse communicative settings\u0000 by different kinds of participants, acting as either speakers/writers or addressees. Tener que + infinitive tends\u0000 to appear in those contexts where a more striking implication or unavoidable recommendation is needed. Haber que\u0000 + infinitive is used more in a wide range of genres promoting a desubjectivizing-deontic meaning. As for the sex/gender of the\u0000 participants, men more frequently use tener que + infinitive, whereas women tend to employ haber\u0000 que + infinitive. The latter feature was also found to be significant when the sex/gender of the addressee is\u0000 unknown; also, tener que + infinitive resulted more frequently in texts to be read or listened by women. The\u0000 sociolinguistic distribution of the meanings conveyed by each periphrasis helps to delineate communicative styles based on the\u0000 objectivity-subjectivity dimension.","PeriodicalId":44036,"journal":{"name":"Pragmatics and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47143453","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This diachronic study investigates Chinese ideological given names (personal names which represent the name-givers’ shared ideas and beliefs) by focusing on historical changes over five time periods between 1935 and 2012. Based on an analysis of 21,687 given names, 2,687 (12.4%) of which are ideological names, the study finds that naming practices bear historical imprints in terms of content and syllabic form. The more intensely a society is politicized, the higher the rate of occurrence of ideological given names. The data also illustrate the dynamic that exists in naming practices between conformity and individuality. In this article, we argue that names are like social cards: people play them to serve their ideological needs, as shown by the evolution of naming strategies through different historical periods. The implication is that historical changes can influence the way in which a name can communicate ideological views.
{"title":"Historical imprints on Chinese ideological given names","authors":"Henghua Su, Peyman G. P. Sabet, Grace Zhang","doi":"10.1075/ps.21008.su","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.21008.su","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This diachronic study investigates Chinese ideological given names (personal names which represent the name-givers’ shared ideas and beliefs) by focusing on historical changes over five time periods between 1935 and 2012. Based on an analysis of 21,687 given names, 2,687 (12.4%) of which are ideological names, the study finds that naming practices bear historical imprints in terms of content and syllabic form. The more intensely a society is politicized, the higher the rate of occurrence of ideological given names. The data also illustrate the dynamic that exists in naming practices between conformity and individuality. In this article, we argue that names are like social cards: people play them to serve their ideological needs, as shown by the evolution of naming strategies through different historical periods. The implication is that historical changes can influence the way in which a name can communicate ideological views.","PeriodicalId":44036,"journal":{"name":"Pragmatics and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-04-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42216107","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Online consumer reviews (OCRs) are characteristic of, and play a vital role in, the sharing economy, the new business model for (in particular younger) generations of consumers. Even so, discussions of the pragmatic strategies that sharing businesses employ in response to negative OCRs are still a scarcity in academic literature. The present article makes an original contribution to rapport management studies by examining both the negative and positive rapport management strategies (RMS; Spencer-Oatey 2008) in the responses of British and Chinese Airbnb hosts to 200 negative OCRs in English and 200 negative OCRs in Chinese; among the 400 responses by Airbnb hosts replying to their angry guests’ negative OCRs, there were just 10 negative and 10 positive RMSs. The study also examines similarities and differences between English and Chinese responses to negative OCRs.
{"title":"Making up or taunting?","authors":"Wei Feng, L. An","doi":"10.1075/ps.21037.fen","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.21037.fen","url":null,"abstract":"Online consumer reviews (OCRs) are characteristic of, and play a vital role in, the sharing economy, the new business model for (in particular younger) generations of consumers. Even so, discussions of the pragmatic strategies that sharing businesses employ in response to negative OCRs are still a scarcity in academic literature. The present article makes an original contribution to rapport management studies by examining both the negative and positive rapport management strategies (RMS; Spencer-Oatey 2008) in the responses of British and Chinese Airbnb hosts to 200 negative OCRs in English and 200 negative OCRs in Chinese; among the 400 responses by Airbnb hosts replying to their angry guests’ negative OCRs, there were just 10 negative and 10 positive RMSs. The study also examines similarities and differences between English and Chinese responses to negative OCRs.","PeriodicalId":44036,"journal":{"name":"Pragmatics and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42878302","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"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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