{"title":"Chinese Politeness: Diachrony, Variation, and Universals in Politeness Theory, written by Rong Chen","authors":"Fan Wang","doi":"10.1163/26660393-bja10146","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/26660393-bja10146","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":367211,"journal":{"name":"Contrastive Pragmatics","volume":"1 1","pages":"1-6"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147903414","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Use of English Pragmatic Markers by Learners of English from Different Linguacultural Backgrounds","authors":"Zhaoyi Pan","doi":"10.1163/26660393-bja10120","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/26660393-bja10120","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This study compared the uses of the textual and interpersonal functions of English pragmatic markers (PMs) by learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) from three different linguacultural backgrounds in two spoken genres. Thirty Chinese, 30 Thai and 30 Indonesian EFL learners were recruited to participate in semi-structured interviews and dyadic conversations. Significant differences in the ways in which the participants used textual and interpersonal functions in the two spoken genres were found, whereas there were significant differences in the use of textual functions by speakers from different linguacultural backgrounds. The spoken genres and the linguacultural backgrounds mainly affected the more frequently used functions, and had no effect on the functions that were used less frequently. Furthermore, the spoken genre had a greater effect on the different uses of the functions of English PMs than did the linguacultural backgrounds.","PeriodicalId":367211,"journal":{"name":"Contrastive Pragmatics","volume":"40 48","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140966227","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Doing More than Confirming: Expanded Responses to Requests for Confirmation in German Talk-in-Interaction","authors":"Alexandra Gubina, Emma Betz, Arnulf Deppermann","doi":"10.1163/26660393-bja10114","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/26660393-bja10114","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000While requests for confirmation (RfCs) make a yes/no-response relevant, recipients often produce more than a mere confirmation. Our paper explores expanded responses to RfCs in German talk-in-interaction. We focus on responses consisting of a confirmation and an additional TCU/action. Drawing on video data from mundane and institutional settings, we demonstrate how expanded responses are designed and fit the sequential environments in which they occur. We show four different functions fulfilled with expanded responses: (i) specifying and elaborating on the topic introduced in the RfC, (ii) accounting for the intelligibility of the speaker’s prior actions, (iii) resisting the terms of the RfC, and (iv) challenging a RfC by referring to the recipient’s pre-existing knowledge. Finally, we summarize interactional features relevant for the occurrence of expanded responses in our data. In addition, we discuss the implications of our results for future cross-linguistic research.","PeriodicalId":367211,"journal":{"name":"Contrastive Pragmatics","volume":"23 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140747884","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Email Pragmatics and Second Language Learners, edited by Maria Economidou-Kogetsidis, Milica Savic, and Nicola Halenko","authors":"Júlia Barón","doi":"10.1163/26660393-bja10116","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/26660393-bja10116","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":367211,"journal":{"name":"Contrastive Pragmatics","volume":" 22","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140387365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Advice in Conversation: Corpus Pragmatics Meets Mixed Methods. Elements in Pragmatics, written by Nele Põldvere, Rachele De Felice, and Carita Paradis","authors":"Lin Shao","doi":"10.1163/26660393-00001064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/26660393-00001064","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":367211,"journal":{"name":"Contrastive Pragmatics","volume":"6 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140442451","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Contrastive Pragmatics Study of Invitations in British English and Japanese","authors":"Chisa Matsukawa","doi":"10.1163/26660393-bja10113","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/26660393-bja10113","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This study offers a cross-cultural pragmatics perspective on invitations. It explores invitation seQuences in a symmetrical invitation-refusal situation, performed by 20 female native speakers of British English and 20 female native speakers of Japanese, from a discursive approach using role plays. The qualitative analysis of the data obtained from the adapted version of conversation analysis revealed some similarities and differences in turn designs of the English and the Japanese invitations. Although pre-sequences were highly frequent in the English data, they were more so in the Japanese data. The analysis of the linguistic formats of the invitations in the two sets of data revealed that an approach to handle uncertainty seen in the cases where the invitation was initiated with a preface differed – the English speakers used a syntactic solution whereas the Japanese speakers used a sequential solution. These findings highlight the importance of analysing speech acts in situated interactions.","PeriodicalId":367211,"journal":{"name":"Contrastive Pragmatics","volume":"21 37","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139795948","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Contrastive Pragmatics Study of Invitations in British English and Japanese","authors":"Chisa Matsukawa","doi":"10.1163/26660393-bja10113","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/26660393-bja10113","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This study offers a cross-cultural pragmatics perspective on invitations. It explores invitation seQuences in a symmetrical invitation-refusal situation, performed by 20 female native speakers of British English and 20 female native speakers of Japanese, from a discursive approach using role plays. The qualitative analysis of the data obtained from the adapted version of conversation analysis revealed some similarities and differences in turn designs of the English and the Japanese invitations. Although pre-sequences were highly frequent in the English data, they were more so in the Japanese data. The analysis of the linguistic formats of the invitations in the two sets of data revealed that an approach to handle uncertainty seen in the cases where the invitation was initiated with a preface differed – the English speakers used a syntactic solution whereas the Japanese speakers used a sequential solution. These findings highlight the importance of analysing speech acts in situated interactions.","PeriodicalId":367211,"journal":{"name":"Contrastive Pragmatics","volume":"15 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139856049","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Contrastive Metapragmatics and the Shifting Semantics of “Sarcasm” in English and Danish","authors":"C. Goddard, Carsten Levisen","doi":"10.1163/26660393-bja10107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/26660393-bja10107","url":null,"abstract":"Despite valuable studies into the uses/functions of sarcasm, no previous investigation has focused on the semantics of “sarcasm” as an emic metapragmatic category. We provide a contrastive lexical study of English and Danish using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach. We find that the English noun sarcasm has been undergoing semantic innovation and is now polysemous, as is its corresponding adjective. Roughly, older sarcasm1 expresses a positive message with an obvious negative intention, while newer sarcasm2 expresses a negative message with the aim of being amusing. For Danish, sarkasme is shown to closely align with sarcasm1, but semantic innovation has been happening in Danish too. A new expression sarkastisk humor overlaps with sarcasm2 but is tailored to fit into Danish humor discourses. The study sheds light on insider understandings and metapragmatic discourses in Anglo and Danish linguacultures. There are cautionary implications for the use of “sarcasm” as a second-order concept.","PeriodicalId":367211,"journal":{"name":"Contrastive Pragmatics","volume":"4 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139262984","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Evaluations Related to Finger Pointing in a Request: a Multi-method Pragmatic Analysis of an Intercultural Encounter","authors":"Johanna Isosävi","doi":"10.1163/26660393-bja10108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/26660393-bja10108","url":null,"abstract":"Drawing on cross-cultural pragmatics, this paper examines an intercultural interaction in French between a Finn and two French people, during which meta-pragmatic comments related to finger pointing by the Finn occurred. This language-anchored, bottom-up study combined multiple methods: the interaction was transcribed using multimodal conversation analysis, evaluated by Finnish and French informants through a questionnaire, and a post-interaction follow-up interview was conducted with the original Finnish interactant. Although the results reveal a discursive dispute related to finger pointing, the L2 speaker did not fully understand the ‘problem’ with her behaviour. A cross-cultural difference appeared as finger pointing in general was evaluated more negatively by French informants than by Finnish informants. This study emphasises the importance of examining multimodality in cross-cultural pragmatics and the usefulness of a multi-method approach to allow the voices of both cultural insiders and outsiders to be heard.","PeriodicalId":367211,"journal":{"name":"Contrastive Pragmatics","volume":"40 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139266185","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Structurally Similar Formats are Not Functionally Equivalent across Languages: Requests for Reconfirmation in Comparative Perspective","authors":"Sonja Gipper, Katharina König, Kathrin Weber","doi":"10.1163/26660393-bja10097","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/26660393-bja10097","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This study is concerned with a cross-linguistic comparison of requests for reconfirmation (RfRCs) in Yurakaré, German, and Low German mundane spoken conversations. We focus on two different RfRC formats, namely token RfRCs (such as German echt? ‘really’) and RfRCs that repeat (part of) another speaker’s prior turn. We show that these RfRC formats are used to accomplish different social actions in the three languages under study, ranging from registering news to challenging prior information. Token RfRCs serve as versatile resources for responding to news in all three languages. Repeat RfRCs, in contrast, are used in divergent ways: In German, they are mainly treated as challenges, while showing only a weak contextualisation of challenges in Low German and virtually no potential for being understood as challenges in Yurakaré. Our study thus demonstrates that structurally similar RfRC formats can be put to use for different actions and sequence trajectories across languages.","PeriodicalId":367211,"journal":{"name":"Contrastive Pragmatics","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126046518","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}