Common ground and meta-pragmatic awareness: A cross-linguistic perspective of pragmatic markers
Linguistic research on pragmatic markers has proved that their role is essential in communication as human language is constrained both socially and culturally (Fetzer & Fischer, 2007; Aijmer, 2013). In the present paper we have investigated pragmatic markers in five different languages: English, Hungarian, Indonesian, Norwegian and Turkish. It will be argued that pragmatic markers can increase metapragmatic awareness, allowing speakers to reflect on and adapt their language use in various communicative contexts. They play a crucial role in fostering understanding and cooperation and are commonly used to signal common ground (Kecskés & Zang, 2009, Kecskés 2014).
The selected pragmatic markers (after all, hiszen, bagaiamanapun juga, jo, sonuçta) in these five languages are used to acknowledge shared beliefs, creating a sense of understanding between speakers. They do not only convey a universal managing function, leading the hearer to the relevant context, where the utterance should be interpreted, offering explanation in this way, but they also refer to a particular aspect of common ground. The cross-linguistic comparison of pragmatic markers offers a deeper insight of the dynamism of the interplay of core common ground and emergent common ground (Kecskés, 2023).
References
Aijmer, K. (2013). Understanding pragmatic markers: A variational pragmatic approach. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Kecskés, l. & Zang, F. (2009). Activating, seeking and creating common ground: A socio-cognitive approach. Pragmatics and Cognition, 17 (2), 331-355.
Kecskés, I. (2014). Intercultural Pragmatics. Oxford University Press.
Kecskés, I. (2023). Common Ground in First Language and Intercultural Interaction. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.
Nemo, F. (2007). The Pragmatics of Common Ground. From Common Knowledge to Shared Attention and Social Referencing. In A. Fetzer & K. Fischer: Lexical markers of Common grounds. Amsterdam: Elsevier.