Journal of PragmaticsPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-07-22DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2025.06.013
Mikyung Ahn , Foong Ha Yap
{"title":"A pragmatic analysis of discourse marker 넵 neyp ‘yep’ in Korean computer-mediated communication","authors":"Mikyung Ahn , Foong Ha Yap","doi":"10.1016/j.pragma.2025.06.013","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.pragma.2025.06.013","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study explores the diverse functions and contextual use of the Korean discourse marker 넵 <em>neyp</em> ‘yep’ in online conversations, highlighting its adaptation within digital communication contexts. Using data from the National Institute of Korean Language (NIKL) Online Conversation Corpus, the study identifies eight primary functions of 넵 <em>neyp</em>, namely, affirmation, acceptance, agreement, confirmation, acknowledgment, continuer, response to summons, and other-initiated repair. The findings reveal that 넵 <em>neyp</em> is not just a simple substitute for “yes,” but a versatile tool for managing conversational flow, building social rapport, and compensating for the absence of non-verbal cues in text-based interactions. By examining these functions, the study contributes to a deeper understanding of how linguistic practices evolve to meet the communicative demands of digital environments, shedding light on the interplay between technology, language, and social interaction. Additionally, the analysis shows that 넵 <em>neyp</em> is more frequently used in online conversations, in large part due to the consonant ㅂ (<em>p</em>), which conveys emphasis and engagement, fostering camaraderie and encouragement among participants. Furthermore, 넵 <em>neyp</em> maintains a polite and approachable tone, making it ideal for casual, professional, and semi-formal interactions, especially with strangers. This study offers insights into how digital environments shape language practices and highlights their role in bridging social distances in online contexts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16899,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Pragmatics","volume":"246 ","pages":"Pages 134-154"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144679913","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}
Journal of PragmaticsPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-07-20DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2025.07.001
Nicola Claire McNab , Irini Mavrou
{"title":"How we are versus how we are feeling: The role of emotional intelligence and mood in reactions to impoliteness in L1 and L2","authors":"Nicola Claire McNab , Irini Mavrou","doi":"10.1016/j.pragma.2025.07.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.pragma.2025.07.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Previous (im)politeness research has tended to focus on socio-cultural influences, thus largely neglecting the role of individual differences. This study takes a socio-cognitive approach to investigate how personality––measured through emotional intelligence (EI)––, mood, and language (first versus second language) influence responses to impoliteness. The study was pre-registered prior to data collection and analysis. One hundred and four Spanish-English bilinguals completed an EI questionnaire and underwent mood induction, before responding to a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) involving ten impolite workplace scenarios. A mixed-methods approach was used, and data were analysed by means of mixed-effects regression models, Chi-squared tests, and content analysis. Sociability, a facet of EI, appeared to influence responses to impoliteness, possibly indicating individual levels of assertiveness played a role. Mood had an impact on response types, with participants in a negative mood responding with more offensive counter-attacks and those in a positive mood responding with more acceptance. However, offensive responses within the positive mood group were also found to utilise more bald on record impoliteness, thus suggesting cognitive processes do vary depending on mood. Language did not have an effect, perhaps signalling similarities between Spanish and English or lending support to the role of pragmatic transfer.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16899,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Pragmatics","volume":"246 ","pages":"Pages 121-133"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144665934","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}
Journal of PragmaticsPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-07-31DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2025.07.004
Oliver Spiess
{"title":"Frames are for talking: Modeling interactants’ co-constructed semantic and pragmatic structures","authors":"Oliver Spiess","doi":"10.1016/j.pragma.2025.07.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.pragma.2025.07.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper explores the rich potential for collaboration between conversation analysis and frame semantics. It illustrates this potential by repeatedly analyzing a conversation fragment and the meaning co-constructed by its two participants. The investigation begins with a conventional sequential conversation analysis and gradually expands to include the taxonomies, categories, and frames that are established and made relevant within the interaction. This leads to the development of a framework termed <em>interactional frame semantics</em>. The paper argues that frame semantics and conversation analysis are highly compatible because they share central methodological concerns. Their integration addresses two major research gaps in both fields: the often implicit yet necessary reliance on semantic knowledge and cognitive processes in conversation analysis, and the neglect of interactional data and phenomena in frame semantics. Sequential analysis benefits from a rigorous frame-semantic formalization of the meanings co-constructed in conversation in at least three ways: first, it helps identify the specific semantic cues that both participants and analysts rely on to interpret interaction. Second, it reveals the local pragmatic affordances through which participants can renegotiate meaning. Third, it enables a quantitative reconstruction of the knowledge, both shared and contested, that emerges through conversational negotiation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16899,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Pragmatics","volume":"246 ","pages":"Pages 170-187"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144750331","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}
Journal of PragmaticsPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-07-11DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2025.06.008
Manuel David González Pérez
{"title":"From elevation to identifiability: Topography as discourse-cognitive signposting","authors":"Manuel David González Pérez","doi":"10.1016/j.pragma.2025.06.008","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.pragma.2025.06.008","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Spatial communication has been at the forefront of recent research in the linguistic, anthropological and cognitive sciences. Independently, a great deal of attention has been devoted to linguistic resources, including spatial language, deployed to structure and organise discourse and conversation. Demonstrative systems are relevant to both lines of enquiry because they can express spatial meanings to locate referents in the real-world (aka exophoric uses) whilst at the same time exhibiting discourse-structuring functions that help speakers and hearers keep track of what has been said (aka endophoric uses). Situated at the intersection between both paradigms, the present article presents novel empirical data on Phola geophysical deixis with a twofold focus. After providing extensive multimodal evidence that Phola demonstratives encode elevation contrasts in a polysemous and pragmatically flexible manner, the discussion turns to their discourse-structuring functions, which are typologically rare. In particular, <em>ke</em><sup><em>55</em></sup> ‘that down(hill)’ is found to exhibit article-like uses indexing referents that are already identified, that are easy to identify, or whose exophoric identity is irrelevant. Both the spatial underspecification of Phola geophysical demonstratives and their discourse–interactional properties shed new light on the interplay between exophoric and endophoric uses and the fluidity between spatial cognition and more abstract cognitive processes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16899,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Pragmatics","volume":"246 ","pages":"Pages 14-53"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144604388","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}
Journal of PragmaticsPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-07-31DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2025.07.007
Frazer Heritage
{"title":"Social identity and implicature: Exploring the pragmatics of transgender coming out narratives in videogames","authors":"Frazer Heritage","doi":"10.1016/j.pragma.2025.07.007","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.pragma.2025.07.007","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Despite being one of the most popular forms of media, videogames are an under-researched text type within linguistics. This paper examines the language used within videogames, specifically in relation to how videogame writers index the identities of transgender characters. Utilising data from the LGBTQ Video Game Archive (Shaw, 2017), which documents the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer content in games, I identify 22 videogames which contain references to transgender characters. A close qualitative reading of instances where transgender characters occur reveals two broad trends: i) there are multiple instances where such representation is unclear and ii) transgender identities are rarely overtly indexed. Within this second trend, I specifically focus on the role of implicature and inferencing in how transgender identities are constructed. That is, how these characters implicitly “come out” to the player and the shared knowledge needed to understand these implicatures. I argue that such shared knowledge is influenced by the social identities and lived experiences of the interpreter, which should be considered in the degree to which meaning<sub>NN</sub> is considered relevant. The research presented has implications for analysing more coming-out narratives and creating more connections between pragmatics, language, gender, and sexuality studies, as well as videogame/media studies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16899,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Pragmatics","volume":"246 ","pages":"Pages 158-169"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144739423","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}
Journal of PragmaticsPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-07-12DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2025.06.011
Xingsong Shi, Yiran Hou
{"title":"A cross-cultural study of the dynamic multimodal metadiscourse used by American and Chinese NEV corporates on X","authors":"Xingsong Shi, Yiran Hou","doi":"10.1016/j.pragma.2025.06.011","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.pragma.2025.06.011","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Social media has revolutionized corporates’ approach to self-promotion, yet the multimodal construction of corporate discourse on social media has hardly been fully explored from either linguistic or intercultural perspectives. To explore how corporates use routine social media posts as dynamic sites of international branding, this study conducts an intercultural pragmatic investigation on how New Energy Vehicle (NEV) giants Tesla (U.S.) and BYD Auto (China, hereafter BYD) employ multimodal metadiscourse to navigate their corporate communication on X. The study extends Hyland’s interactional metadiscourse framework into the multimodal realm, integrating multi-semiotic modes such as text, pictures, emojis, hashtags, @mentions. In addition, by constructing a more inclusive multimodal metadiscourse framework, the study innovatively conducts frame-by-frame dissection of videos presented by the companies on X. Through examining the dynamic visual-textual interplay in 600 posts (300 per company), this study uncovers the profound influence of cultural values on the corporates’ patterns of deploying multimodal metadiscourse strategies. Among various differences observed, BYD’s preference for visualized pictures and videos reflects China’s high-context culture, whereas Tesla’s frequent use of emojis and other-mention pronouns aligns with the individualistic, low-context and low power distance cultural orientations in the U.S. The unignorable pragmatic functions of dynamic multimodal metadiscourse markers are scrutinized and highlighted, and the theoretical and pragmatic implications are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16899,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Pragmatics","volume":"246 ","pages":"Pages 54-73"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144611873","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}
Journal of PragmaticsPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-07-11DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2025.06.006
Laurence R. Horn
{"title":"The stigma enigma: When the personal (dative) is political","authors":"Laurence R. Horn","doi":"10.1016/j.pragma.2025.06.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.pragma.2025.06.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study focuses on two variably stigmatized constructions in non-mainstream English and the implications for social pragmatics of how these constructions and their users are assessed. Unlike non-standard constructions broadly viewed as “bad English”, non-polarity <em>anymore</em> <em>(Gas is really expensive anymore)</em> and personal datives <em>(I need me a new phone)</em> are not stigmatized within the relevant core speech communities. When noticed by out-group speakers, however, such constructions are typically judged as incorrect and their users as illiterate or uneducated. Such expressions and constructions function as both positive and negative markers of group identity. In-group speakers are sensitive to the contempt and inauthenticity of out-group “elitist” politicians and recording artists who impersonate the non-standard speakers they view as uneducated hicks. The divergent social meanings assigned to a given usage in different contexts parallel the distinct social meanings carried by ethnic and gendered slurs based on who “owns” the expressions in question and on power and status asymmetries. Extending Nunberg 2018, it is argued that the derogation associated with both slurs and appropriated constructions arises as a Manner implicature illustrating “ventriloquism”, a practice by which speakers affiliate themselves with a like-minded community of bigots and linguistic profilers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16899,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Pragmatics","volume":"246 ","pages":"Pages 1-13"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144595661","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}
Journal of PragmaticsPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-07-15DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2025.06.010
Annalisa Federici
{"title":"The pragmatics of online healthcare communication: Politeness strategies in an anxiety and depression support community","authors":"Annalisa Federici","doi":"10.1016/j.pragma.2025.06.010","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.pragma.2025.06.010","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article investigates the use of politeness strategies in online peer communication within a support group focused on anxiety and depression. Although health communication has been widely studied across various platforms, the application of (im)politeness theory to health-related Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) remains relatively unexplored. Using Brown and Levinson's framework alongside the relational work model, the study shows that potentially face-threatening acts such as seeking and offering support or advice are frequently softened through politeness strategies like hedging, indirectness, and claiming common ground. Self-disclosure emerges as a key discursive practice that allows individuals to express vulnerability and request help/advice without overt imposition, while those offering responses often convey empathy and guidance through personal storytelling. Advice is commonly delivered indirectly – using declaratives or interrogatives – even when no explicit request is made, reflecting the importance of relational work in these interactions. Through close analysis of selected forum threads, the study illustrates how participants use brief personal narratives to foster solidarity, express emotional and informational support, and navigate the complexities of advice-giving/seeking in ways that minimise threat to self and others. These findings contribute to ongoing discussions on CMC in healthcare by showing how politeness strategies underpin interactional norms in online mental health communities. By combining linguistic and discourse-pragmatic perspectives, the study highlights the role of language in shaping supportive environments and managing relational dynamics in non-clinical, peer-driven settings.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16899,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Pragmatics","volume":"246 ","pages":"Pages 74-89"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144632041","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}
Journal of PragmaticsPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-08-04DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2025.07.006
Wei Ren , Saeko Fukushima , Yaping Guo
{"title":"Comparison between Chinese and Japanese self-praise on social media","authors":"Wei Ren , Saeko Fukushima , Yaping Guo","doi":"10.1016/j.pragma.2025.07.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.pragma.2025.07.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Self-praise is attracting increasing attention in pragmatics and discourse studies. However, Japanese self-praise has rarely been investigated, particularly in online communication. In addition, few studies have examined self-praise from a cross-cultural pragmatics perspective. Therefore, this study compares Chinese and Japanese self-praise on social media, based on 300 instances of Chinese self-praise on Weibo and 300 instances of Japanese self-praise on Twitter. The findings show that the Chinese and Japanese netizens both produced three categories of self-praise: explicit self-praise without modification, modified explicit self-praise, and implicit self-praise, in the same order of decreasing frequency. The Chinese netizens most frequently employed the modified explicit self-praise strategies “disclaimer”, “praise from a third party”, and “referring to the group”, while their Japanese counterparts preferred the modified explicit self-praise strategy “change of praise focus” and the implicit strategy “self-praise as sharing”. The study discusses the similarities and differences between these two groups’ social media self-praise, particularly with regard to the affordances of social media and pragmatic norms in the two cultures.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16899,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Pragmatics","volume":"246 ","pages":"Pages 219-231"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144771401","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}