Contextualization and perspectivization in lyrics
The paper approaches the dynamic process of contextualization (cf. Auer 2009) as a mobilization of background knowledge that seems relevant to the perspectives of discourse... Read More
A lexical pragmatic view on the relationship between word meanings and encyclopedic knowledge
In the past two decades or so, the investigation of word meaning has experienced a highly intensive interaction between lexical semantics and pragmatics. Although various... Read More
Corpus-based analysis of independent conditional clauses and their semantic-pragmatic roles in Hungarian
Independent conditional clauses starting with the subordinate conjunction ha ‘if’ have diverse pragmatic functions (Evans 2007) in Hungarian (1) (2). They are not easy to... Read More
Pronominal deixis power to shape political discourse: A corpus analysis of English and Arabic speeches
“Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind”, stated Orwell (1946,... Read More
Pragmatics of illnesses in colloquial Jordanian Arabic: What matters and what does not!
This presentation investigates the linguistic expressions of a number of illnesses in Jordanian Arabic (JA). Drawing on naturally occurring data, we supply evidence that illnesses... Read More
The dilemma of mother tongue among Algerians
In Algeria, while Arabic serves as the official language, the colloquial Algerian dialect, known as Algerian Darija, is used in daily communication (Harrat et al.,2016).... Read More
An ethnographically grounded approach to speech act research: The case of responses to thanks in Namibian English
Speech act research in Variational Pragmatics has a long tradition in eliciting data via Discourse Completion Task (DCT) questionnaires and analyzing the resulting data based... Read More
The multilingual pragmatics of Cameroon English
African Englishes have been studied widely in terms of structural phenonema, such as pronunciation, lexis, and syntax. Pragmatic aspects, however, have hitherto been largely neglected... Read More
Rethinking politeness: Using silence and laughter to create common ground
Misunderstanding is unavoidable in communication due to interlocutors’ restricted access to similarities, conventions, standards, and norms. Naturally, interlocutors would change pathways to prevent the predicted... Read More
“Scammer watch, eke mbo”: The pragmatics of decoding language of street children in southwestern Nigeria
The phenomenon of street children is a complex global issue, but their population and experiences in Third World countries are a cause for concern and... Read More