Adrian Leemann , Carina Steiner , Péter Jeszenszky , Jonathan Culpeper , Lea Josi
{"title":"Saying goodbye to and thanking bus drivers in German-speaking Switzerland","authors":"Adrian Leemann , Carina Steiner , Péter Jeszenszky , Jonathan Culpeper , Lea Josi","doi":"10.1016/j.pragma.2024.09.011","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.pragma.2024.09.011","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The present study investigates the dynamics of leave-taking and thanking on buses in rural versus urban settings. Employing a mixed-methods approach, Study A involved an online survey with 1000 participants from 125 locations in German-speaking Switzerland, while Study B observed 236 passengers' behaviors in urban and rural contexts whereby contextual factors such as location of exiting, time of day, and passenger demographics were systematically varied. Results revealed an urban-rural divide, with rural areas demonstrating more frequent leave-taking and thanking. Factors like door location on the bus, number of exiting passengers, and passenger age influenced the realization of these speech acts, with front-door, solo exits and older passengers displaying more leave-taking and thanking. Furthermore, in rural areas, bus drivers often initiated the interactions. Subsequent qualitative interviews after the conduction of Study B revealed several possible reasons for the urban vs. rural divide: in the rural countryside, bus lines can be geographically more exposed. Roads can be dangerous, particularly in wintertime. This could increase the probability of wanting to bid farewell to the bus driver and to express gratitude for bringing them home ‘safely’. This research sheds light on the subtleties governing social exchanges within public transportation contexts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16899,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Pragmatics","volume":"234 ","pages":"Pages 78-98"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142660216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Welp in talk-in-interaction: Moving on from publicly available disappointments","authors":"Drew Spain","doi":"10.1016/j.pragma.2024.10.009","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.pragma.2024.10.009","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates how <em>welp</em>, a phonetic variant of the discourse particle <em>well</em> that has achieved recognition through its proliferation online, functions within talk-in-interaction. Its usage is identified in two positions: 1) prefacing a sequence-closing assessment produced in reaction to a publicly available gap between expectations and the result of some interactional enterprise, and 2) produced solitarily in the same context in order to close a sequence and move on to the next. Solitary <em>welp</em> is then compared with <em>oh well</em> in order to distinguish between their orientations, and evidence supports the conclusion that whereas <em>oh well</em> surrenders an ongoing project, <em>welp</em> orients to an already concluded matter.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16899,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Pragmatics","volume":"234 ","pages":"Pages 52-65"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-11-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142660324","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“I jigglyfucked you with Luigi!”: Person deixis in local multiplayer combat video game play","authors":"Katelyn MacDougald","doi":"10.1016/j.pragma.2024.10.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.pragma.2024.10.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates person deixis in local multiplayer combat video game play. Unlike online gaming, local multiplayer game play supports multiple points of reference as players are mutually and simultaneously embodied within three deictic fields: the realworld (physical environment), gameworld (virtual environment), and playworld (interface between the two). The interplay between these fields is examined in talk that occurs during recorded sessions of two brothers playing <em>Super Smash Bros</em>. Using an interactional sociolinguistic framework, the analysis demonstrates (1) that deictic shifts correlate with frame shifts and (2) that patterns in complex person deixis correlate with different types of frame lamination. In this way, it is argued that deictic fields are constituents of interactive frames, offering insight into the dynamics of person, time, and space in local video game play in particular and co-present gaming in general. This finding contributes to a broader understanding of the strategies by which interactants navigate and build emergent worlds through the activity of playing together.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16899,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Pragmatics","volume":"234 ","pages":"Pages 66-77"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-11-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142660325","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The acceptability of epistemic adverbs in intersubjective contexts: Consideration of epistemic de pronto in Colombian Spanish","authors":"Dylan Jarrett","doi":"10.1016/j.pragma.2024.10.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.pragma.2024.10.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The present study employs an acceptability judgment task to determine the degree to which native speakers of Colombian Spanish accept three epistemic adverbs (<em>de pronto, posiblemente, tal vez</em>) in intersubjective contexts of speech act hedging. 85 native speakers of Colombian Spanish completed a 17-item contextualized acceptability judgment task in which they provided Likert ratings of the degree to which they accepted the three adverbs in contexts of epistemic commitment, representative speech act hedging (opinions, conclusions) and directive speech act hedging (suggestions). It was found that <em>tal vez</em> was accepted at moderately high to high rates for both types of hedging, while <em>posiblemente</em> was accepted at moderately high rates for contexts of hedging representative speech acts (specifically, the mitigation of conclusions), but was rated moderately low in contexts of hedging directive speech acts. <em>De pronto</em> was only moderately accepted in contexts of hedging directive speech acts and rated moderately low in contexts of hedging representative speech acts. This research contributes to the field by providing empirical description of the pragmatic capabilities of epistemic <em>de pronto</em> as well as experimental evidence of the variable use capabilities of otherwise synonymous adverbs. Additionally, the pragmatic restrictions observed in the more recently epistemic <em>de pronto</em> support existing theories of semantic change which note an increase in intersubjectivity over time.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16899,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Pragmatics","volume":"234 ","pages":"Pages 19-33"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142660322","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The use of Co-enactment for joint stance-taking in Flemish sign language interactions","authors":"Fien Andries","doi":"10.1016/j.pragma.2024.10.007","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.pragma.2024.10.007","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article investigates the use of co-enactment for stance-taking in Flemish Sign Language (VGT) interactions. Enactment, i.e., a signer or speaker combining “bodily movements, postures and eye gaze to ‘construct’ actions and dialogue in order to ‘show’ characters, events and points of view” (Hodge and Ferrara, 2014, p. 373) serves as a resource not only for depicting characters and events but also for expressing the signer's stance on these characters and events. Furthermore, through enactment, signers invite their interlocutors to adopt their perspective on the events depicted, thus influencing mutual understanding and involvement.</div><div>While previous research has extensively explored formal aspects of individual enactments, co-enactments, i.e. sequences in which multiple participants jointly enact the same event, are largely unexplored in signed interactions.</div><div>The present study identifies three functions of co-enactments, as evidenced in the data: grounding, joint stance-taking, and joint fantasizing. Furthermore, I examine the sequential unfolding of these enactments, as well as their design, including body partitioning, through which signers simultaneously manage the discourse and enact characters. The results demonstrate that, in contrast to traditional views that depict enactments as solitary activities, co-enactments involve both signers in jointly shaping and evaluating stance objects, thereby facilitating intersubjective conceptualizations of events and stance alignment.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16899,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Pragmatics","volume":"234 ","pages":"Pages 34-51"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142660323","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"No biggie can be a “biggie”: A taxonomical and statistical analysis of the pragmaticalization of no biggie on the basis of pragma-syntactic variation and co-occurring lexical items","authors":"José Antonio Sánchez Fajardo , Vasiliki Simaki","doi":"10.1016/j.pragma.2024.10.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.pragma.2024.10.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study seeks to explore the pragmaticalization process of <em>(it's) no biggie</em>, through a corpus-based taxonomical and statistical examination. The research study involves (i) elaborating a taxonomy of <em>no biggie</em> constructions by exploring the variability of the pragmatic functions and the syntactic features associated with the construction; (ii) monitoring the links between the taxonomical types of <em>no biggie</em> and the parameters of syntactic loci and structure of the construction (e.g. absence of <em>it's</em>); and (iii) determining habitual lexical items that co-occur with the construction. The findings show that the vast majority of <em>(it's) no biggie</em> constructions are used in its abbreviated form <em>no biggie</em>, half of which being employed as a discourse-pragmatic marker (DPM). The correlations between syntactic loci and the taxonomy were tested through Chi-square, which demonstrates that specific pragma–syntactic properties are orderly assigned to extended forms, and that pragmaticalized free-standing constructions (as with DPMs) are generally used in the middle of a clause. The analysis of <em>no biggie</em> collocates also indicates that the pragma-syntactic function of the collocates is oftentimes subject to the syntactic function of the construction types. Finally, a qualitative examination of the taxonomy and their examples confirms that pragma-syntactic variation occurs differently in all the taxonomical types, the DPM <em>no biggie</em> showing the highest degree of variation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16899,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Pragmatics","volume":"234 ","pages":"Pages 1-15"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142552097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"In memoriam: Emanuel A. Schegloff 1937–2024","authors":"Steven E. Clayman","doi":"10.1016/j.pragma.2024.09.009","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.pragma.2024.09.009","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":16899,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Pragmatics","volume":"233 ","pages":"Pages 105-107"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142418182","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sleep well in Småland, whether you prefer a castle or a hut: Performing persuasion through patterns of you in tourism discourse","authors":"Annelie Ädel, Åsa Öhqvist, Sadjad Shokoohi","doi":"10.1016/j.pragma.2024.09.008","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.pragma.2024.09.008","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Persuasion is especially prominent in genres with a strong aim to affect others’ behaviour. Contemporary persuasion studies often centre on domains such as advertising, politics and media, and the present study targets tourism. Previous work on persuasion in tourism discourse has focused on word choice and collocations, while this study addresses how persuasion is performed through broader rhetorical functions. The English version of the official tourism website for Sweden was compiled into a 53,296-word corpus. Word frequency data showed that <em>you</em> was highly frequent. All examples involving <em>you</em> (N=450) were analysed inductively to identify persuasive rhetorical functions. Seven functions emerged: Specifying tourist identities; Constructing helpful/expert guide; Building rapport; Anticipating reader reactions (focusing on the visitor and/or guide); and Personifying the destination; Presenting options; Imagining scenarios (focusing on the destination). The most frequent function was found to be Constructing helpful/expert guide, whose frequency contrasts sharply to Anticipating reader reactions and Personifying the destination, with the remaining functions falling in between. The frequency analysis details how the seven functions co-occur; it revealed a common pattern of overlapping functions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16899,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Pragmatics","volume":"233 ","pages":"Pages 85-99"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142418180","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The complexities and dynamics of pragmatics of sharing on social media","authors":"Wei Ren","doi":"10.1016/j.pragma.2024.09.010","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.pragma.2024.09.010","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The concept of sharing has undergone significant transformations with the advent of digital technologies and social media. From online forums to social media platforms, the practice of sharing has become increasingly nuanced and multifaceted, which underscores the complexity of online communication. This editorial provides a broad overview of the complexities and dynamics of sharing practices on social media, drawing on insights from relevant literature and the field of pragmatics, and discusses the potential factors that may influence individuals’ sharing practices and pragmatic strategies. Finally, it summarizes the key contributions of each article, highlighting its theoretical and empirical significance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16899,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Pragmatics","volume":"233 ","pages":"Pages 100-104"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142418181","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}