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In this paper I will analyze the set of markers that have been associated with exclamative sentence-type and exclamations in Romance, like Catalan ma, mira, que , and si , Italian guarda and che , or Spanish mira, que, si , and vaya. The hypothesis I will defend is that the meaning encoded by each of these markers contribute to create an exclamation speech act. I will show that we must first distinguish mirative markers like ma, mira or guarda , which encode the surprise attitude of the speaker towards a proposition. A second class of elements are degree operators, like si , which create the necessary domain extension on which the attitude of the speaker is built. Finally, I will show that que / che is a marker of exclamative sentence-type. In the second part of the article I will show that these pragmatic differences have a transparent reflex in syntax: mirative markers occupy the Judge Phrase position in Krifka's Speech Act Layer, above ForceP and vocatives, so they may combine with different sentence-types, besides exclamatives. In ForceP we find degree operators (and exclamative wh -phrases) in its specifier, and the sentence-type marker que / che in its head. All in all, the paper aims at showing that a compositional approach to exclamativity can deal with the rich set of pragmatic and syntactic properties of exclamative markers in Romance. • Exclamativity and mirativity are two distinct pragmatic categories, with specialized markers. • Mirative markers are typically found with exclamative sentences, but they may appear with other sentence-types as well. • The set of pragmatic and syntactic properties of exclamative particles in Romance can be explained compositionally. • Data from exclamative markers support a rich syntax-pragmatics interface along the lines of the Cartographic Program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Declarative sentences are known to be compatible with a wide range of different speech acts. The paper develops, for German, a proposal in which declarative sentences that express assertions, declarations (including explicit performatives), exclamations, wishes, commands, observations (or miratives), reminders and questions have slightly distinct syntactic representations and, consequently, semantic interpretations. The syntactic representation allows for epistemic and evidential modifications of assertions and for markers of assertive strength by speechact-related adverbials and by embedding verbal predicates that are usually analyzed as parenthetical. It also contains new proposals for evidential modal verbs and for the reportative subjunctive in German. Speech acts are interpreted as common ground updates that typically do not only involve an informative update but also a performative update that changes the worldtime indices of the common ground. This does not only hold for declarations but also for assertions and exclamations, where the former are analyzed as creating a commitment to the truth of a proposition, and the latter as committing to an emotional attitude. In contrast to proposals that relegate the illocutionary interpretation of declarative clauses largely to pragmatics, the paper develops a perspective in which it is predominantly a matter of syntactic structure and compositional interpretation. • Syntax and semantics of different interpretations of declarative sentences. • Assertions, declarations, exclamations, wishes, observations, reminders, questions. • Speech acts as updates of common ground. • Modifications of assertions by epistemic, evidential and commitment strength markers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sharing experience via social media communication has been examined in psychology, sociology, communication and linguistic studies. While this research has mostly examined consumption experience and health issues, how people make meanings and develop interactions while sharing mundane matters needs more investigation. This paper reports on a pragmatic investigation into individuals sharing their exam experiences in social media groups. Data were collected from two support groups on Douban , a Chinese social networking site that encourages users to share their thoughts, interests and experiences. A total of 400 original posts, 200 each from a group sharing experiences of failure in examinations and a group sharing their success in examinations, were collected and analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The findings showed that the two groups were significantly different in the ways they voluntarily disclosed their identities and in the types of expressions they employed to refer to different participants. In addition, they differed significantly in how they sought or offered support in interactions. Similarities and differences between the two groups' sharing are discussed in relation to the instructions of the two groups, their identity construction, the affordances of social media, and the importance of politeness and face in Chinese culture. • This paper reports on a pragmatic investigation into individuals sharing their exam experiences in social media groups. • The failure and the success groups were significantly different in the ways they voluntarily disclosed their identities. • They were also significantly different in the types of expressions used to refer to different participants. • They differed significantly in how they sought or offered support in interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how apology strategies are used to rebuild the public's trust using evidence from Chinese e-commerce live-streaming hosts' apology letters. It is found that live-streaming hosts can use two strategies to rebuild the public's trust: apology-related metalanguage labels and apology-related supportive moves. The former are routine formulas generally used to give an explicit apology, such as "sorry." The latter are strategies used to support apology-related metalanguage labels, including offering explanations, taking responsibility, making promises, showing empathy, and expressing integrity. Further quantitative analyses indicate that metalanguage labels alone cannot rebuild the public's trust. Trust can be rebuilt only by combining metalanguage labels and supportive moves. This paper contributes to the theoretical study of trustworthiness building in the public arena and can enhance trust relationships between e-commerce and the public. • E-commerce live-streaming hosts use apology letters to build trust. • The apology letters include metalanguage labels and supportive moves. • Metalanguage labels (apology) alone cannot rebuild public trust. • Trust can be built by combining apology and supportive moves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores what I call Dissociative Syntactic Amalgam (DSA) constructions, observed in conversation parts of fictional varieties of English, such as film/TV scripts and novels. I provide 27 cases of DSAs, most of which come from Corpus of Contemporary American English and Movie Corpus. A paradigm example is I get off at ten past I'm never going out with you (as an answer to What time do you get off (work) tonight?), where I'm never going out with you is clausal but fills a nominal slot. In DSAs, the speaker initially lures the hearer to create a positive expectation (e.g., I can go out with her), but the speaker 'dissociates' herself from this expectation, that is, expresses her negative attitude (e.g., irritation) towards it. DSAs have received little (if any) analytic attention, and this paper aims to fill this gap in the literature. More specifically, I describe interpretive aspects of DSAs in comparison with the standard cases of syntactic amalgams (e.g., Ken sent you'll never guess how many letters to Naomi) and develop a cognitive–pragmatic account in relevance theory, explicating the interpretive path a hearer takes in comprehending a DSA utterance. • Identifying the Dissociative Syntactic Amalgam (DSA) construction. • Considering the ways in which a speaker conveys a variety of emotive meanings. • Presenting a theory-neutral description of interpretive aspects of DSAs. • Developing a cognitive–pragmatic account of DSAs in relevance theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnomethodology has been influential in many social science fields, including and especially applied linguistics, where conversation analysis is a major subfield for analyzing oral data. Nevertheless, ethnomethodology can also be—and has been—fruitfully applied to written discursive data, using its tools and methods to describe in detail how written texts are assembled and reflexively used, as members' methods, for doing and displaying social actions. This paper proposes an open analytical model to capture existing ethnomethodological analyses of written discourse and create a more transparent and replicable protocol for new analyses. I reconstruct ethnomethodology as set of assumptions and principles, review seminal research that used these principles to analyze written discourse, and present the master concept of "active text" that encapsulates them. I then construct a hierarchical prospective-retrospective model to formalize the methods used in ethnomethodology of written discourse. I use the model to reconstruct the analytical methods of two papers to show how it can be used for transparency and replication. The discussion section covers modelling in qualitative applied linguistics and ethnomethodology, and ends with some conclusions. • Ethnomethodology has a long relationship with discourse analysis, but focused on oral registers. • Ethnomethodology can be conceptualized a set of ontological and epistemological assumptions and principles. • A formalized and open analytical model can be used to apply ethnomethodology to written discursive data. • A model can help make ethnomethodological analysis of discursive data easier to apply and more replicable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the interactional dynamics of reusing and resisting metaphors of the body, illness and medical treatment in consultations between doctors and chronic pain patients in a pain clinic. Research has evidenced the general importance of metaphors in talk, and in health care settings specifically. Metaphors serve as a way of structuring our reasoning and understanding, including of illness experiences. This is particularly relevant in the case of chronic pain, as these patients are usually expert patients with particular assumptions on their illness, due to the chronic nature of their condition. However, we know less about how metaphors are taken up and potentially resisted in interaction. We study this by combining conceptual metaphor theory, MIPVU and interactional analysis. We found that metaphors are reused in many different ways, ranging from exact repetitions or very similar rewordings, to extensive metaphorical and literal elaborations, and are sometimes met with different forms of resistance. In our data, how metaphors are taken up is not tied to the metaphors' characteristics, but can mostly be explained by interactional dynamics, often specific to clinical consultations. This shows that not only which metaphors, but when and how they are used, matters when communicating with patients in health care contexts. • We have a good understanding of which metaphors are used in health care. • We know less about interactional reuse, development, and resistance to metaphors. • This paper combines metaphor and interaction analysis to study uptake of metaphors. • How metaphors are taken up is not specifically tied to metaphors' characteristics. • Rather, it relates to interactional dynamics, often specific to medical consultations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main tenets of Gricean pragmatics is the distinction between what is said and what is implicated; that is, between truth-conditional and non-truth-conditional meaning. The main contribution of post-Gricean pragmatics was a new definition of what is said as a pragmatic and truth-conditional meaning (Carston, 2002; Recanati, 2010; Moeschler, 2018a). However, implicated meaning (mainly conversational implicature) is still defined as non-truth-conditional because it is cancellable without contradiction. The main consequence is that a speaker can deny having intended her implicature, which results in the hearer having no guarantee of the truthfulness of his inference. This paper explores the relationship between truth and pragmatic implicated meaning and posits that the assessment of a truth value of an inference is a crucial step in the comprehension process. To demonstrate this hypothesis, the paper develops a relevance-based approach to inference, which is coupled with Kahneman's dual cognitive system. I argue that the triggering of an inference is an intuitive and automatic process controlled by System 1, whereas its assessment as a true or false assumption is controlled by System 2. In other words, System 2 is responsible for what is defined in relevance theory as epistemic vigilance. • Explaining the dissociation of the inferential process from the assignment of a truth value to the inferred conclusion. • Assigning the inferential task to Kahneman's System 1, and the task of determining truth value to his System 2. • Fake news is assigned the truth value 'true' because it is compatible with the common ground. • The detection of fake news requires the intervention of System 2, which compares the proposition with the common ground. • Debunking fake news is only possible if an alternative common ground is accessible to the audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper forms the introductory article to the special issue 'Expressing Evidence'. It lays out the background into the pragmatic and semantic research on evidence in language, and positions the collection of papers within this theoretical landscape. The collection stands out in its focus on conceptual issues involved, including the relation between 'grammatical' evidentiality and other constructions that signal evidence and the consequences of these connections for the semantic and pragmatic theory. The special issue aims to bring the work on evidentiality to the attention of a broad audience, including not only linguists, but also language scientists more generally, as well as philosophers of language and science. • Evidential restrictions come in many forms in the grammar. • Studying the relation between evidentials and other evidence signals raises important questions. • It is important to place evidentiality within pragmatics, philosophy of language and epistemology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates narrative sequences where human speakers verbalize non-human animals' imagined thoughts in Finnish. The data contain interviews reporting interspecies encounters in the early 20th-century peasant communities, and conversations from a call-in radio program broadcasted in 2012 where participants describe and explain animal behavior. The study focusses on the grammatical and narrative properties of animal inner speech (AIS). These are analyzed in a cognitive-pragmatic framework concerning reported thoughts, deixis, and intersubjective meaning construal. The results are compared to what we know of language use in Human–Animal interaction. To gain further insight into the role of human language in describing interspecies encounters, the outcome of the analysis is discussed with respect to the biosemiotic notion of perceptual worlds. Reported AIS was found to co-occur with expressions of animal sensory perception, describing the ways in which animals treat and assess sensory input. In doing so, reported AIS differs from what previous literature has observed concerning reported human thoughts. From a narrative perspective, reported AIS reiterated already provided information and did not contribute to the unfolding of events. AIS was used to share awareness of human experience concerning the plurality of perceptual and semiotic centers in the situation described. As such, it displays certain similarities with language use in situations with co-present animals. The paper sheds light on the linguistic coding of interspecies sharedness in perception and spatial coordination. • Animal inner speech (AIS) co-occurs with expressions of animal sensory perception. • Reported AIS partly differs from reported human thoughts. • Narrative AIS display similarities with language used with co-present animals. • Linguistic deixis is mapped on the biosemiotic model of perceptual worlds. • Language forms code interspecies sharedness in perception and spatial coordination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper contributes to the emerging field of embodied interaction. It reports on research into deictic interactions between a human and a non-human, specifically a cat, interlocutor, applying a pragmatic framework developed for human–human communicative interactions. We analyse video recordings of interactions where a cat is a deictic agent pointing the human interlocutor either to the door or the food bowl. We show that these interactions show triadic pointing, hence, focusing joint attention on a common object as a proxy for the event i.e., providing food in the bowl and opening the door. We show that the cat also checks whether the human understands her intentions and that she confirms the human's interpretation. We do not restrict ourselves to vocal communication - as is often done in human language studies -, but we examine how in cat-human communication the cat and human bodies are used to express deixis. Thus, we conceptualize deixis as an embodied interpersonal i.e., interspecies phenomenon. We show that the cat interlocutor uses her body, e.g. eyes/body/tail/ears, as well as her voice, meowing/purring, within this complex deictic interaction. • The present paper investigates the contribution of the non-human feline interlocutor as a deictic agent in interspecies human/non-human interaction. • Our analysis successfully applies a pragmatic framework developed for human–human communicative interactions, to intraspecies instances of human-non-human interaction. • We show that the body emerges as the crucial locus of deixis, which in turn entails that one (and perhaps the only) prerequisite to. • The specific expression of deixis depends on the kind of body possessed by the deictic agent: There are aspects of "human deixis" that cats cannot express, and vice versa. • Deictic communication of cats includes eye gaze, and possibly positioning of the ears and the instrumental use of the paw. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the goals of classical, philosophy-oriented pragmatics studies is to postulate some pragmatic conditions by which we can evaluate a given utterance as successful or not, like the truth conditions by which we can evaluate a given sentence (proposition) as true or not. Speech Act Theory presents a number of felicity/successful conditions as such, while the interaction of the Cooperative Principle and meaning NN (nonnatural meaning) is supposed to do the job in Grice's system. The present paper investigates a type of unsuccessful utterance (which I call an emotionally unsuccessful utterance) that seems to have escaped serious attention thus far. My goal is to show that emotionally unsuccessful utterances are properly accounted for by Grice's system but not by Speech Act Theory (nor by post-Gricean pragmatics and dynamic semantics). Grice's system differs from the others in that a successful utterance is defined not directly in terms of its semantic content but indirectly in terms of the audience response intended by the speaker. I conclude the paper by putting its findings into a wider theoretical perspective. • Some utterances are unsuccessful, even if their contents are new to the audience. • The speaker can intend to induce emotional responses in the audience by an utterance. • Grice's notion of nonnatural meaning is defined on the basis of a response of the audience. • An utterance is unsuccessful, unless the audience's uptake of the intended response is achieved. • Grice's program is unique in putting a substantial emphasis on the audience response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In jury trials, attorneys must build arguments about the facts and how these facts should be interpreted, and this happens through Q&A sequences with their own and the opposing party's witnesses. The structure of the courtroom interrogation usually disadvantages witnesses, especially in cross-examination because attorneys have the upper hand in the exchanges. This paper analyzes the Q&A sequences in a trial involving lawyers as witnesses and concerning abstract issues to investigate the different strategies attorneys and witnesses use to engage argumentatively. Specifically, the data are from a civil rights trial in which a female attorney sues a law school for not hiring her as an instructor. The suit alleged that the law school politically discriminated against her following her job talk because of her conservative political views. The paper shows how attorneys with their own witnesses can engage in co-reasoning, and how attorneys and the opposing side's witnesses can resist each other's argumentative projects. More specifically, we show that a question's answerability is a key resource which can be exploited by both attorneys and witnesses. • In trials attorneys pursue their own and resist competing argumentative projects • Yes-no questions vary in answerability , i.e., their content abstractness • In direct examination, attorneys co-reason with witnesses • Political discrimination trials involves showing or refuting negative feelings [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most approaches to discourse markers tend to rely on observation on the behavior of monolingual classes of markers. In this paper, we offer a detailed analysis of the behavior and function of a single Spanish discourse marker, namely bueno , in bilingual discourse as opposed to its bilingual counterpart well. In particular, we compare pragmatic factors, and namely fine-grained differences between Spanish bueno and English well , with interactional factors such as the position of the marker in monological vs. dialogical sequences. Finally, we also take into account the impact of individual linguistic choices by comparing the behavior of different speakers when using the scrutinized discourse marker. Thus, we do not only contribute to and expand on previous literature on the behavior of discourse markers, but we also offer a new perspective to further study discourse markers in situations of language contact. • The paper explains the behavior of a single Spanish DM and its English counterpart in bilingual discourse. • A methodology based on online focus groups is used to explore the functionality of the discourse marker in interactions. • The paper finds a broad range of interpersonal functions that explain the use of bueno in bilingual discourse. • An underexplored community is proposed as a focal point in the study of contact and pragmatics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we look at the role that macrostructures in discourse have to play in the study of swearing. While studied in isolation, such macrostructures have not yet been studied comprehensively and the range of macrostructures studied has been small. By contrast, work on microstructures is much better developed. In response to this, using spoken corpus data from the BNC2014, we take two approaches to studying discourse in this paper. In the first approach, we explore spoken data which has been annotated with a functional discourse coding scheme that shows, across the corpus, the distribution of a set of macrostructures, discourse units, that generally characterise conversation. Our goal is to see how swearing distributes according to discourse unit function and to account for any observations made. Following from that, we explore a single macrostructure of discourse - narrative, including its sub-elements - to see whether swearing interacts with this macrostructure and its component parts. We conclude by arguing that discourse is an important dimension along which the use of swearing may vary, that such variation is likely to relate to emotion, and that the different perspectives on macrostructure taken in the paper are complementary. • The need for swearing research to shift to consider macrostructure as well as microstructure. • Functional views of discourse and swearing. • Discourse unit and narrative annotation of conversational data. • Nesting of macrostructures in discourse. • Swearing, emotion and macrostructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper examines the use of English in Namibia focussed on one particular type of social situation, namely small talk with a stranger at a party. The analysis concentrates on the opening turns-at-talk and contrasts Namibian English to previously analysed native and learner varieties of the English language, specifically English English, Irish English, American English, Canadian English, and German English. This paper thus contributes to research in variational pragmatics comparing national varieties of the same language. More particularly, the present study reveals a range of variety-preferential patterns for Namibian English and thus contributes to establishing a pragmatic profile of English in Namibia. • Focuses on one type of social situation: small talk with a stranger at a party. • Contrasts Namibian English with native and learner language varieties of English. • Emphasizes the methodological importance of data comparability. • Contributes to research in variational pragmatics comparing national varieties of the same language. • Reveals a range of variety-preferential pragmatic features of Namibian English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Backchannels (BCs) are signals produced by conversation partners to support the ongoing turn of the interlocutor. Audible backchannels can have a lexical (yes) or non-lexical form (mhm), consisting of one unit (mhm) or multiple units (mhm yes). In this paper, we analyse the form and function of Multi-Unit Backchannels (MUBs) in Italian conversational speech. Data are drawn from the DIA (Dialogic ItAlian) corpus, a collection of spontaneous and informal conversations between dyads of Italian speakers who know each other well. In this corpus, MUBs represent over 29% of total backchanneling signals. While most single-unit backchannels fulfil a single function, with Continuer being the most frequent, the majority of MUBs fulfil multiple functions simultaneously, usually involving Agreement. Although backchannels are regarded as very short utterances, a large proportion of MUBs are, in fact, not short in duration. Interestingly, in our corpus MUBs are produced more frequently by speakers who do not take a prominent role in the interaction. • Multi-Unit Backchannels (MUBs) are prevalent in Italian informal conversational speech. • MUBs constitute 29% of all backchannels in our corpus. • MUBs fulfil multiple functions simultaneously, usually involving Agreement. • Over 68% of MUBs have a duration longer than 500 ms [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Versailles literature, a newly immerged genre on Chinese social media, is aptly defined as "humblebragging": bloggers showing off different aspects of themselves in a humble way. Previous research on the genre have focused on the "humble" part of the genre, arguing that the different strategies bloggers use to appear humble are for the purpose of appearing to be modest, a key value in Chinese politeness. But do the bloggers achieve that end, i.e., does humblebragging improve the self-image of the humblebraggers? In this paper, we report on an empirical study on this question and find that Versailles literature posters do not improve their self-image via humblebragging. In fact, evidence suggests that their image is damaged. Instead of appearing to be humble, these posters are perceived as showing and hypocritic. Our study therefore contributes to several strands of pragmatics: politeness evaluation, Chinese politeness, and internet pragmatics. • Versailles Literature (VL), defined as humblebragging, is a new genre in Chinese social media. • The literature on VL has focused on the humble, arguing that appearing humble helps enhance the image of VL posters. • This study reveals that VL damages the image of its posters, not enhancing it. • This study contributes to politeness evaluation, politeness research, and internet pragmatics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demonstratives constitute a language universal. They are primarily spatial but can designate mental space, signaling the speaker's stances in discourse. In stance-taking, e.g., evaluating, positioning, and aligning, (inter)subjectivity plays an essential role. This paper addresses two sets of demonstrative-based discourse markers (DDMs) in Thai, i.e., those based on the proximal demonstrative nîi (▪) and the medial demonstrative nân (▪), focusing on their functions and positionality at left periphery (LP) and right periphery (RP). An examination of the functional distribution of eight DDMs in our Thai dataset reveals that the oft-cited LP/RP Functional Asymmetry Hypothesis is not supported. Further worth noting is that the Leftward Movement often said to be associated with subjectification (i.e., increasing subjectification pushes a word to move leftward) is not attested, or at least not observable, in the development of DDMs in Thai. • Thai has demonstrative-based discourse markers (DDMs). • DDMs developed from proximal and medial demonstratives. • DDMs carry diverse subjective and intersubjective functions. • The Functional Asymmetry Hypothesis is not supported by the DDM development. • The Leftward Movement Hypothesis is not supported in the DDM development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

British culture is said to be characterised by off-record or negative politeness and norms giving prominence to social distance. However, this assumes that politeness works in the same way across all British speakers and contexts. Work constituting variational pragmatics – a field at the interface of pragmatics and dialectology – has shown this to be an over-simplification. Using data from the Spoken British National Corpus 2014, this paper explores politeness variation across gender, age, region, population density, social class, highest educational qualification, and setting. We selected 50 key British conventionalised politeness formulae, each allotted to one of three different types of politeness (tentativeness, deference or solidarity), and differing levels of formality. Instances of these 50 formulae were retrieved from a subset based on setting (private; public; institutional), and then manually screened to remove non-genuine cases of politeness (e.g., sarcasm). We applied a mixed-effects multinominal logistic regression model to analyse the effect of each social variable on the use of politeness formulae. Clear differences across politeness types and levels of formality emerged, particularly with regard to differences between genders, population density (i.e., metropolitan vs. urban), and setting. We offer a series of explanations for each finding. • Demonstrated a corpus-based method for tracking politeness across social variables. • Men use more politeness formulae than women, largely due to vocative mate. • Rural speakers use more politeness formulae than those in large metropolitan areas. • Politeness usage increases in private compared to public/institutional settings. • Women's politeness usage decreases in the institutional setting specifically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Placed at the intersection of semantics and pragmatics, the concept of semantic prosody has been associated with various notions including evaluative meaning, attitudinal meaning and connotations, and there is no agreement among researchers as to its definition and operationalization. In this critical-reflection theoretical paper, we provide an overview of collocational and discoursal approaches to semantic prosody, which we treat as distinct and, at the same time, complementary. Furthermore, we suggest that the semantic prosody can be conceptualised as an interaction between a source and a target term, where the target term has a descriptive semantic content, and it receives its evaluative meaning from the source term, which can be either only evaluative (thin) or both evaluative and descriptive (thick). Next, we propose that the source of semantic prosody can be accounted for in terms of value judgments. In particular, a value judgment that a speaker ascribes to the factual content of a term is always relative to a certain kind of standard. Thus, our proposal supports the view that the speaker's stance, manifested in value judgments that they ascribe to terms, can be considered as a source of semantic prosody. • We propose a new theoretical reading of semantic prosody grounded in the philosophy of language. • We argue that semantic prosody arises as a result of interaction between thin and thick terms. • We argue that the semantics of expressions that have semantic prosody can be understood in terms of value judgments. • We argue that value judgements ascribed by speakers to expressions are relative to a culturally-marked kind of standard. • Our proposal supports both the collocational and discoursal views of semantic prosody. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on live streams as interactional phenomena from an ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (EMCA) perspective. It discusses how streamers and viewers manage attention and engagement and how noticing-based actions constitute a powerful and crucial resource to produce and display these, finely tuned to the asymmetric communicative affordances of live streams, which, in the case of expository live streams, enact a streamer on display for the perceptual consumption of remote viewers. It discusses how streamers and viewers may produce noticing sequences and noticing-based sequences. It also discusses how the orientation towards noticing in expository live streams may become contagious and lead to a 'noticing effervescence.' • Streams and streamers are oriented toward eliciting various responses from viewers. • A powerful resource for viewers to achieve engagement is to send messages designed as noticing-based actions. • Noticing-based actions index some prior perceptual realization regarding features or events in the stream. • Noticing-based action implies that what is treated as noticeable is deeply embedded in message designs. • Such an action format casts viewers as onlookers, framing the streaming activity as a spectacle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bilmes's work in the last decade of his career was primarily concerned with the approach he developed and called Occasioned Semantics. Bilmes based OS on Sacks' (1995) membership categorisation work together with components of taxonomical analysis derived from ethno-semantics. While the approach was primarily aimed at the field of Semantics, Bilmes also argued that OS offered a way to develop upon Sacks' work by situating categorial inferencing within 'occasioned fields of meaning' within which categorial definitions and descriptions evolve through a taxonomic branching texture. In this paper we explore the potential analytic intersection between aspects of Bilmes' OS and Sacks' category analysis together with later developments in Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA). In particular we revisit the 'consistency rule' together with 'omni-relevance', which provides a way of understanding shifts in fields of meaning as hierarchical and multi-layered. The combined approach allows to bring into view multi-layered sequential and categorial flow with taxonomic branching that takes place within an ongoing, unfolding and contingent interactional context of 'who-we-are-and-what-we-are-doing'. • Explore the analytic intersections of Occasioned Semantics and MCA. • Consider how combined OS and MCA can add to the analytic insights of each other. • Explore how emergent structures of meaning are co-constructed by participants. • Shed further light onto the routine layering of members' situated categorial practices. • Revisit the 'consistency rule' together with 'omni-relevance'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the procedural meaning of the Spanish adverb apenas , proposing that it carries the procedural meaning of right-hand APPROACHING. This procedural meaning effectively accounts for various interpretations and argumentative orientations of apenas in different contexts. The analysis demonstrates that apenas consistently implies a closeness or minimality, whether in quantitative or temporal domain. The procedural meaning also explains the negative argumentative orientation of apenas. Therefore, the different meanings of apenas can be analyzed in a holistic way. Through this analysis, the study aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of adverbial usage in Spanish and potentially guide analogous investigations in other languages. • The Spanish adverb apenas carries a procedural meaning. • The procedural meaning can offer a holistic analysis of this adverb. • The procedural meaning also explains the negative argumentative orientation of apenas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the information structural properties of so-called premise (also factual) conditionals, conditional sentences whose antecedent repeats previously evoked content. We argue that, semantically, premise conditionals are hypothetical conditionals, with two pragmatic properties: their antecedent is echoic and thematic. We show that some of the differences identified in the literature between hypothetical and premise conditionals follow from the informational status of the antecedent. While the antecedent of a premise conditional is thematic, the antecedent of a hypothetical conditional can also be rhematic. Rhematic conditionals happen to be compatible with all the characteristics that stand out as incompatible with premise conditionals. Additionally, we argue that echoicity is a definitional property of the premise reading of indicative conditionals. • Premise (also called factual) conditionals are not a syntactic/semantic object on their own. • They are just a possible interpretation of an indicative conditional given the right discourse conditions. • We define them as thematic and echoic; the antecedent need not be Common Ground. • Thematicity explains previously observed characteristics of premise conditionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the key defining feature of ostensible speech acts, namely pretense, by which a speaker pretends to be sincere. For ostensible speech acts to function as the initiating speaker intends, the interlocutor must recognize the pretense. This study explores the timing of such recognition. Two novel discourse gating tasks probe listeners' ability to distinguish pretense from sincerity, ostensible from genuine refusals, and the point in the conversation at which recognition takes place. Both tasks use turns as gates, presenting the conversational stimuli aurally to listeners turn by turn and asking them to make predictions about the outcome of each conversation. The gating tasks differ in terms of how predictions are elicited. Listeners volunteer their predictions as soon as they can make them (open-prediction) or respond to prediction prompts to make a choice (fixed-prediction). Responses elicited from 60 L1 Chinese speakers and 47 L2 Chinese learners are compared across acceptances, genuine refusals, and ostensible refusals. Results show that listeners do not immediately recognize pretense, and thus may not immediately collude or act on mutual recognition, but L1 speakers tend to recognize pretense faster and more accurately than L2 learners. • Speakers of Chinese do not recognize pretense in ostensible refusals immediately. • Native speakers recognize pretense faster and more accurately than learners. • Timing of recognition varies between different tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates a previously unresearched use of the discourse marker so : prefacing answers to questions from an interlocutor, informally coined "backstory so " and found to signal that the answer necessitates background information, or more complexity or length than the asker assumes the questioner expects, a function known to be carried out by well. This investigation was motivated by (i) negative attitudes toward this use of so , describing the speakers with attributes like annoying, condescending, confusing, and wrong; (ii) layperson claims that it is new; and (iii) non-scholarly writings by linguists reporting controversy over whether answering questions with so is actually new or a Zwickian Recency Illusion. This paper draws on spoken data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English from 1990 to 2016, and presents findings of 774 target tokens by 544 unique speakers starting in 1992. Results of a logistic regression show a statistically significant increase in the rate of this form over that time. I tentatively suggest that previous constraints against the discourse marker so prefacing answers to mark added information seem to have undergone a rapid language shift, competing with the older use of well , and supporting the layperson intuitions of newness. • Prefacing the answer to a question from an interlocutor with so shows evidence of being an innovation on the rise. • This use of so marks added background information that the answerer assumes the questioner lacks, a function often carried out by well. • Grassroots prescriptivists in the online discourse criticize so -prefacing answers and claim that it has been increasing. • The rise of this form may have started in the early 1990s, which does not support a Zwickian Recency Illusion. • Those laypeople associate so -prefacing answers with expert interviews on NPR , which was also the most common source in the corpus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the way speech-language therapists instruct and correct aphasic speakers regarding the pronunciation of linguistic items and model pronunciation through auditory, verbal, visual, and tactile resources, thus configuring it as an embodied, multisensory experience. The data analysis shows that correction of a patient's productions is first initiated by therapists audibly, through repetition of the target item with specific prosodic features, such as loudness and length. When this type of cue proves to be ineffective, therapists perform instructions and corrective demonstrations through visual and haptic cues: By using their body as an "instructional tool," they represent, with gestures and facial expressions, features of the target sound. They can also touch a patient's face to help them to correctly realize specific articulatory movements. This paper focuses on the hierarchy of embodied resources that are mobilized by therapists, in an ordered and incremental way, to model pronunciation. Moreover, it highlights the methods used to enhance patients' visual attention toward embodied resources and solve issues of bodily coordination. More broadly, this paper highlights the complex embodied nature of speaking and, by focusing on a pathological situation and a therapeutic setting, shows what participants treat as relevant for producing speech sounds in interaction. • Therapists correct aphasic speakers regarding the pronunciation of speech sounds. • Modelling of speech sounds is done through audible, visual, verbal and tactile resources. • Therapists use their body as "instructional tool" for representing features of the target sounds. • Bodily demonstrations are part of the instructional work. • Patients' visual attention is enhanced towards therapist's face. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recurrent claim, coming from different approaches to pragmatics, argumentation theory and related disciplines, is that informative presuppositions have a special persuasive force. My aim in this paper is threefold: first, it is to achieve a better understanding of this claim. I argue that we should carefully distinguish between persuasion , which involves forming a belief, and accommodation , which requires acceptance of a proposition for the purpose of the conversation. Consequently, we should distinguish between the persuasive force of presuppositions and a different claim concerning our tendency to accommodate presuppositions. Second, I briefly discuss the evidence available for these claims, from the perspective of the distinction introduced. Finally, I argue that the Stalnakerian approach to presuppositions has the resources needed to offer an account of their persuasive force. • The paper analyzes the thesis that informative presuppositions have a special persuasive force. • Attention needs to be paid to the distinction between persuasion and accommodation. • The evidence available is discussed from the perspective of this distinction. • An account of the persuasive force is offered within the Stalnakerian framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze humorous mockery in terms of politeness. Using data from a Chinese standup comedy competition, Rock and Roast , we demonstrate that politeness is a determining factor in the contestants' selection of targets for their mockeries (primarily those close to them), in the characteristics of the targets being mocked (primarily those that reflect the targets' persona as opposed to the person), and in the fact that, when individuals are expressly mocked, they are very often vehicles for parodic or sarcastic criticisms of specific social issues. By looking at how politeness interacts with the play frame of the standup comedy genre, our paper contributes to both humor research and politeness theorizing. • Politeness is very much at work in the context of the play frame of humorous mockery. • Humorists target FACE 2 (persona), not FACE 1, in an attempt to be polite. • Humorists target those close to them more than those who are not. • Mockeries may also serve to enhance the image of self and other. • Politeness is relevant to humor as it is for other types of language use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the generic structure and pragmatic acts (practs) in Yoruba traditional weddings from southwestern Nigeria. Three purposively selected weddings are qualitatively analysed, using the Generic Structure Potential and a modified form of the pragmatic act theory. The study reveals that the practs of praying, instructing, pleading and counselling are deployed within nine structural elements. These practs incorporate psychological and non-verbal acts as well as contextual features such as reference, metaphor, shared situational and cultural knowledge. The paper shows that the generic structure and pragmatic functions of utterances offer valuable insights into the procedure and discourse of Yoruba traditional weddings. • Yoruba traditional weddings can be coded using the Generic Structure Potential. • Pragmatic acts of praying, instructing, pleading and counselling are deployed in identified generic structures. • The discourse context plays a significant role in defining participants' communicative intentions and pragmatic roles in the weddings. • Generic structure and pragmatic functions of utterances offer valuable insights into the procedure and discourse of the weddings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conversational humour, which broadly encompasses (sequences of) utterances that are designed to 'amuse' participants or are treated as 'amusing' by participants across various kinds of social interaction, is an inherently social phenomenon involving not only the speaker but at least one recipient. An episode of conversational humour includes (at least) a humour bid proffered by the speaker and the response to it by the recipient. This study focuses on the recipient's responses to humour and introduces a framework for analysing responses to humour bids which is grounded in a close analysis of the sequential trajectory of humour episodes. Drawing on data from intercultural initial interactions in English, and focusing on the sequential trajectory of humour episodes through the lens of interactional pragmatics, this study proposes a typology of responses to humour bids, offering a basis for operationalisation in talk-ininteraction. Within this framework, there are five sequentially distinct types of responses that can follow a humour bid: 1) disattending humour, 2) minimal response to humour: sequence closure, 3) minimal response to humour: serious response, 4) minimal response to humour: agreement, and 5) post-expanding humour. • This paper introduces a systematic model for analysing responses to conversational humour in their interactive context. • Humour can be responded to in five distinct sequential ways. • This model makes the study of humour responses more analytically tractable. • It is premised on the assumption that participants are held (normatively) accountable for their responses to humour bids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demonstratives are ubiquitous in the world's languages, but their range of extended functions often vary in interesting ways from one language to another. In this paper, we focus on the proximal demonstrative (i)neh 'this' in Kerinci Malay to trace its uses beyond the referential domain. More specifically, we examine the extension of (i)neh from its basic spatial deictic uses as a demonstrative pronominal and adnominal (i.e. determiner) within the referential domain to its more abstract and socio-interactional uses within the non-referential domain. Among these extended uses are: (i) lexicalized expressions (e.g. enumerating device ineh , attention-getting device (i)neh , and temporal adverbial inin neh 'now'), (ii) discourse-framing expressions (e.g. topic marker and subordinate clause marker), and (iii) pragmaticalized epistemic stance expressions (e.g. utterance-final stance particle). Of special typological significance is the availability of a morphophonological and morphosyntactic mechanism in Kerinci Malay known as 'phrasal alternation' that distinguishes between Oblique and Absolute forms, which can be used to help disambiguate between referential and non-referential (including stance-marking) uses of demonstratives such as (i)neh. Findings from this study have implications for our understanding of how the human mind tracks shifts in deictic uses. • Demonstrative (i)neh not only has referential but also non-referential uses. • Phrasal alternation disambiguates between these basic and extended uses. • Kerinci phrasal alternation is a morphophonological and morphosyntactic mechanism. • Referential uses take Oblique forms; non-referential uses take Absolute forms. • The mechanism provides evidence that the human mind tracks shifts in deictic uses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite their central role in mediated linguistic communication, headlines have not been a prime topic of linguistic pragmatics. However, not only may pragmatic notions and categories prove useful for a comprehensive account of strategies of headline communication, headlines may also provide interesting test cases for current pragmatic debates. In this editorial, I provide a short overview of previous pragmatic research into headlines, sketch the relevance of headline studies for current research trends in pragmatics, and emphasize the need for a more systematic pragmatic approach to headline communication. Finally, I introduce the four research papers which make up this virtual special issue, providing short summaries of their main findings and clarifying their contribution to the topic of the special issue. • Headlines play a central role in mediated linguistic communication. • Linguistic pragmatics may contribute to a more consistent and more comprehensive understanding of headline communication. • Headlines provide interesting test cases for current pragmatic debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the organization of responses to informings. Using Conversation Analysis, it will show that different receipting practices, including both embodied and vocal ones, display differences in scope in response to informings. With these differences in scope, recipients of informings can signal to the informing party that they receipted either the just preceding part of the informing or the entire informing. The positions of these practices follow a typology of four dimensions: embodied vs. vocal, token vs. phrasal, semantically empty vs. semantically filled and rising vs. falling intonation. When an informing is receipted by different practices of these pairs, the first type will be used for small-scope recipiency while the second type will be used for large scope. This organization of receipting practices illustrates how participants in informing sequences can negotiate the completeness of the informing and the state of informedness of the recipient. • An organization is shown of Dutch receipt practices in response to informings • The organization includes vocal and embodied receipt practices. • Receipt practices display differences in scope. • Recipients of informings signal their state of informedness • With the organization, participants negotiate the success of informing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with pragmatic inference from the perspective of Conversation Analysis. In particular, we examine a specific variety of inferences – the attribution of incompetence which Self constructs on the basis of Other's prior action, hearable as positioning Self as incompetent (e.g., instructions, offers of assistance, advice); this attribution of incompetence concerns Self's execution of some practical task. This inference is indexed in Self's response, which highlights Self's expertise, or competence concerning the task at hand. We focus on two recurrent types of such responses in our data: (i) accounting for competence through formulations of prior experience with carrying out a practical action and (ii) explicit claims of competence for accomplishing this action. We analyze the interactional environments in which these responses occur, the ways in which the two practices index Self's understanding of being positioned as incompetent and the interactional work they do. Finally, we discuss how through rejecting an inferred attribution of incompetence, Self implicitly seeks to restore their face and defend their autonomy as an agent, yet, without entering an explicit identity-negotiation. Findings rest on the analysis of 20 cases found in video-recordings of naturally occurring talk-in-interaction in German from the corpus FOLK. • Inferences from Other's conduct are indexed by response-design. • Highlighting Self's competence can reject the inference that Other treats Self as incompetent. • Claiming competence serves restoring face and securing autonomy of action. • Inferences from Other's conduct are rarely shown to be communicated by Other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the ongoing semantic change of a discourse marker in Japanese social media. An analysis of 140 instances of the sentence-final tteyuu on Twitter, renamed X in July 2023, suggests that this discourse marker is shifting from a textual function of elaboration to a stance marker of lighthearted mockery. I argue this transition is attributed to its recurrent use in specific contexts, leading to invited inferences about the writer's intentions in expanding upon an idea, which extend beyond purely informational to interpersonal and social concerns. The functional ambiguity of these examples suggests an intermediate stage in tteyuu's evolution. The findings of this study underscore the centrality of pragmatic inferencing in semantic changes as well as the context-dependent nature of meaning creation. • Sentence-final tteyuu on Twitter (or X) is shifting from a textual to a stance marker. • Recurrent use in specific contexts drives pragmatic inference and semantic change. • Anonymous writers' self-mockery stance reflects their social meta-self-awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current paper replicates findings related to the analytical heuristic of 'metalinguistic density'. It provides updated theoretical motivations for an analytical focus on explicit metalanguage in online text-based settings, based on notions of symbolic interactionism. An analysis of online user comment data of the 2019 Hong Kong protests reconfirms that the relative occurrence of metalanguage focusing on certain terms indicates the extent to which these terms' denotational norms are shared amongst a community of language users. While most terms in the corpus do not regularly attract explicit metalanguage, several terms thematically related to the protests did. This disproportionate metalinguistic attention may be explained by political disputes on the movement's legitimacy, which led to normative debates on the discursive representation of the protest movement. Finally, certain phrases had become indexical of a certain political position to the extent that they were the frequent target of irony. In general, the results suggests that 'metalinguistic density' is a useful heuristic to employ in text-analytical investigations that seek to explain participants' interpretations of discursive interactions. • 'Metalinguistic density' measures the sharedness of terms' denotations. • Results of earlier research are replicated in a thematically distinct dataset. • Metalanguage reflects ideological clashes over discursive representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the major tasks of historical pragmatics is to account for the pragmatic mechanisms underlying semantic changes. However, previous research generally ignored the heterogeneity in the pragmatic mechanisms of semantic changes. Drawing insights from Truth Conditional Pragmatics, this paper proposes the Lexical Meaning Contextualization model and uses it to analyze the semantic changes of the Mandarin Chinese discourse marker dangran (当然). It is discovered that dangran 's evolution is likely to be motivated by multiple rather than single pragmatic operations. Altogether 4 types of pragmatic operations are involved in dangran 's evolution. They exhibit synchronic cooperation and diachronic divisions of labor. These findings reveal the complexity of the pragmatic mechanisms underlying semantic changes. • Semantic changes are the byproducts of the contextualization of lexical meaning. • Multiple rather than single pragmatic operations are underlying semantic changes. • There is synchronic cooperation among these pragmatic operations. • These pragmatic operations also exhibit diachronic division of labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proper name vocatives sometimes induce implicatures. The phenomenon is probably well-known but not necessarily easy to explain in a pragmatically consistent fashion. The reason is that the same kind of name vocative yields implicatures in one occasion but sounds quite neutral in another. The goal of this paper is to advance a system by which we can predict when a given name vocative engenders implicatures in English. The system is based on the concept of conventional implicature, one of the three types of implicature delineated by Grice (1961 , 1975 , 1989). There is a special kind of conventional implicature inducer in which implicature is not directly encoded in a lexical item but in a contrastive pair of lexical items (like vous and tu in French). I propose that a set of competing proper name vocatives, namely, the full name, the (title plus) family name, the first name and the shortened first name (of a given addressee), is taken as one of those contrastive conventional implicature inducers. By capitalizing on Terkourafi's (2001 ; 2005a , 2008 , 2009 , 2012) concept of conventionalization (standardization), I develop a theory in which private level linguistic habits play a crucial role in inducing implicatures of proper name vocatives. • Some proper name vocatives yield conventional implicatures. • Competing proper name vocatives constitute a distance scale. • A noticeable conventional implicature arises between a non-default vocative and the default one in the distance scale. • The default name vocative is decided on the basis of contextual parameters. • The paper lends an empirical support to the markedness/defaultism theory of Terkourafi (2001 ; 2005a , 2008 , 2009 , 2012). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on identity construction in family discourse, with the objective to investigate how identities of an adult daughter (the older sister/adult child at home) are made salient in and through family talk. Guided by Harvey Sacks's (1995) work on membership categorization combined with sequential analysis (Stokoe, 2012), the study examines 15 h of audio-recorded conversations between a mother and her two children in a Chinese-Australian family. Two specific identities of the adult daughter – a home educator and a child – are discussed in this paper where the findings reveal that such identities are invoked and negotiated by participants via their self- and other-categorization. The adult daughter's self-positioning becomes visible in interaction through her turn design and category-implicative social actions, which orient to a set of category-packaged rights, responsibilities, and attributes that index a particular category. However, the invoked memberships are not only accepted but also challenged by other family members in following turns, which reflects how the adult daughter is positioned by them during different family activities. By exploring an adult daughter's membership categorization in family talk, this study contributes to the under-researched topic of identity construction in Chinese-Australian/Chinese family discourse. • This paper focuses on identity (co-)construction and negotiation of an adult daughter in a Chinese-Australian family. • Two types of identity are discussed – as a home educator and as a child. • Such identities become visible through the adult daughter's turn design and social actions. • Such identities are not only accepted but also challenged by other family members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between argumentation and language has recently attracted a great deal of attention through various publications in the field of argumentation studies (see e.g., Boogaart et al., 2021; Hinton, 2021; Oswald et al., 2018; Oswald et al., 2020). In this paper I propose a historical overview of this relationship by narrowing the scope of my inquiry onto the various ways in which argumentation studies, over the last 50 years, have drawn on research in the field of linguistic pragmatics, which I will limit here to its speech act-theoretic and inferential traditions, respectively based on the seminal groundwork of Austin and Grice (Austin, 1962; Grice, 1989). I first discuss various points of contact between the two disciplines, as they have been put forth by researchers in argumentation over time. I then articulate this overview around three types of contributions pragmatics has been able to offer argumentation scholarship: descriptive, normative and explanatory contributions. These correspond to the main research questions investigated within argumentation theory. The paper thus examines current work at the interface of argumentation and pragmatics that illustrates how argumentative research that seeks to answer these three research questions has been pragmatically infused over the last 50 years. I conclude with some thoughts on promising directions of research which demonstrate that the research potential of this interface is far from being exhausted. • First systematic overview of the pragmatics–argumentation interface. • Explains how argumentation theory has drawn on pragmatic insights for more than 50 years. • Discusses the descriptive, normative and explanatory insights pragmatics has contributed to the study of argumentation. • Reflects on future directions of research at this interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a theory of interpreting argument types as an integral part of a systematic and comprehensive 'hermeneutics of persuasive discourse'. It first explains how such a hermeneutics can be developed based on pragmatic insights about the use of language for persuasive purposes expressed in the philosophy of argument. Then, after having provided an overview of the main hermeneutical stages involved in interpreting persuasive discourse, the paper focuses on the stage of argument type identification. It formulates a 'hermeneutics of argument type' in terms of the Periodic Table of Arguments (PTA), an argument categorization framework systematizing existing accounts of arguments in the broad sense of the term (topoi , loci , argument schemes, fallacies, means of persuasion). For each of the three parameters within this framework, 'argument form', 'argument substance', and 'argument lever', the paper describes how to determine their value by analyzing several examples of natural arguments. • Offers detailed pragmatic insights about the use of language for argumentative or persuasive purposes. • Provides a general overview of the hermeneutical stages involved in interpreting argumentative or persuasive discourse. • Contains an explanation of the Periodic Table of Arguments (PTA) and its application to analyzing argumentation in the wild. • Provides clear guidelines for annotating corpora of argumentative or persuasive discourse. • Can be used to design empirical cognitive psychological research into how people process persuasive messages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on data obtained from Cantonese corpora and interactions in everyday contexts, this paper identifies and analyzes the range of pragmatic functions that the interrogative pronoun me1 has. Focusing on the subjective evaluative functions of me1 that go beyond interrogation, this present study attempts to suggest the development pathway of me1 becoming a negative stance marker. Derived from combining the interrogative pronoun mat1 'what' and the general noun je5 'thing' followed by phonological reduction, it is observed that me1 (< mat1je5) has gone a long way, from replacing an item of enquiry, to substituting for an unretrievable or unutterable item to avoid taboo and embarrassment, and further to a negative evaluative attitudinal marker that can occupy a range of syntactic positions (including the pre-nominal and clause-initial positions) to signal the speaker's disagreement and derogatory attitude, and finally to become an interrogative sentence-final particle which is essentially subjective and negatively biased. Adopting a broadly interactional linguistic perspective (Ochs et al., 1996; Selting and Couper-Kuhlen, 2001), our present study looks at how me1 can be used to negotiate interpersonal functions in the course of conversational interactions. Findings in this paper will have significant contributions to the study of wh- markers generally, and provide important insights into how extended functions of wh -markers can be developed in Sinitic languages specifically. • The Cantonese stancemarker me1 serves a range of pragmatic interpersonal functions. • Me1 has undergone the development: me1 < mat1je5 < mat1 "what" + je5 "thing". • Me1 has a negative valence. • Me1 can be used as an interrogative pronoun, a placeholder, and a negative evaluative marker. • Me1 as an interrogative sentence-final particle is essentially subjective and negatively biased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyze how amount answers are elicited when initial efforts to elicit them fail. When a response is not forthcoming, 'approximation elicitors' can be used to elicit a response. The work of this device is threefold. It reissues the question (in modified form) thereby sustaining the question as something that must reasonably be answerable and answered. It accounts for the 'persistence' in pursuit of an amount answer, i.e. , the questioner is less likely to be seeable as 'badgering' the respondent with the same question, because the question's parameters have been adjusted and loosened. It implies an account for the initial failure to provide a reasonable answer and maintains the social expectation that the respondent ought to be able and willing to answer this question. Approximation elicitors work to preserve and maintain the accountability of both the questioner and respondent, as well as to provide for the progression of the question-answer sequence. By analyzing this device's work to manage the production of 'reasonable' questions, as well as the ability and requirement to respond to a reasonable question, this paper makes evident an interactional basis of epistemic 'responsibility.' • When amount questions aren't answered, one can use an approximation elicitor. • Approximation elicitors reissue the question, sustaining it as reasonable. • They account for 'persistence' in pursuit of an amount answer. • They also imply an account for the initial failure to provide a reasonable answer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with Nigerians' use of pragmatic markers in their computer-mediated communication. The investigated items originate from various languages but now seem to be used across ethnic boundaries in online interactions that take place in Nigerian Pidgin and Nigerian English. Relying on a large corpus from a Nigerian web forum, the study focuses on a set of common interjections and other textual and interpersonal pragmatic markers and their discourse-pragmatic functions. Their semantic flexibility allows these items to perform different functions depending on the context. I argue that they are vital in indicating emotional involvement and response and in contextualizing (Gumperz, 1982) the forum contributions. Furthermore, the particularities of employing, interpreting, and researching such items in text-based online communication are addressed. This paper contributes to a description of "pragmatic borrowing" (Andersen, 2014) in Nigeria, as well as to the rising field of pragmatics of computer-mediated communication. • Multifunctional Nigerian pragmatic markers have been borrowed into Nigerian English. • Pragmatic markers create coherence and conversationality in digital writing. • Strategic respelling acts as a contextualization cue in digital writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes a case of grammaticalization of a sentence-final particle (sfp) - tanun that developed from an adnominal complementizer (comp) structure ta hA-non in Middle Korean (mk). This newly emerging sfp carries a wide range of subjectified and intersubjectified, i.e., stance-marking, meanings such as boastful talk, fake-mirativity, pejoration, self-degradation, attention-seeking, and attracting sympathy. It is argued that this grammaticalization process was initially triggered by the constructional similarities between the mk comp sentences and the desiderative and doubt-marking indirect interrogative sentences. In the course of grammaticalization, this marker shows increasing collocational compatibility and expansion of its use as a stance marker in Present-Day Korean (pdk). Ellipsis of the head noun induces the addressee to reconstruct the missing noun that is compatible with the explicitly presented comp sequence with which the utterance is ended. As it frequently occurs sentence finally, - tanun becomes conventionalized as a sfp. Notably, the development of the declarative-based sfp - tanun triggered a parallel development involving the other sfps, i.e., imperative, interrogative, and hortative markers. Based on these observations, this paper argues that grammaticalization processes can be paradigm-based and can be triggered by analogy by virtue of structural similarity among the forms involved. • Stance-marking senses of - tanun are initially triggered by an analogy of the structural similarities. • Attitudinal meanings of - tanun are motivated by host-, syntactic-, and semantic-class expansion. • Ellipsis of the nominal head induces the addressee to reconstruct the missing part. • The grammaticalization of the sfps - tanun, - lanun, - nyanun, and -canun is paradigm-based. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linguistic studies of emergency calls have explored their interactional structure (Zimmerman, 1984; Natrass et al., 2017) and the practices used by callers to successfully describe the nature and location of their problems (Paoletti, 2012; Garcia, 2015). Building on research on emergency calls to university police (Kevoe-Feldman, 2016) and on how callers and call-takers in these calls negotiate misunderstandings (Tracy, 1997), this paper addresses the following research question: What practices do university police call-takers use to describe situations to 911 when relaying information from calls with members of the university community? Examining three pairs of calls where members of the university community first call university police followed by the university police call-taker calling 911 about the same situation, I use discourse analysis to identify how university police call-takers highlight their shared social background or "comembership" (Erickson, 2011) while recycling, rekeying, and reframing information from laypeople (Tannen, 2006) in calls to 911. By highlighting how university police call-takers use such practices to overcome discursive challenges in managing events with laypeople and 911 call-takers, this paper provides practical applications for training of university police and 911 call centers and introduces directions for research on improving interactions between callers and call-takers. • University police and 911 call-takers negotiate a range of discursive challenges in calls from laypeople and to 911. • Institutional expectations in an emergency call consider callers as having first party access to a situation. • University police call-takers relay information from laypeople as serious and deserving of service from 911. • Expressing social similarity or comembership with call-takers aids the progression of an emergency call. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My aim in this paper is to contribute to the debate on the foundations of semantics and pragmatics by developing an Austinian alternative to the Gricean programme. The Gricean approach has been criticised by Ernie Lepore and Matthew Stone who claim that most of the interpretive effects that are usually accounted for as inferentially recognized aspects of meaning are in fact determined by grammar. I argue, however, that it is the Austinian perspective rather than the extended-grammar outlook, that constitutes a genuine alternative to the Gricean programme. Viewed from the Austinian perspective, using language is a social practice that consists of performing conventional speech acts: acts done conforming to a convention. Unlike the Griceans and the proponents of the extended-grammar outlook, however, the Austinians assume that following a convention is not an algorithmic procedure, but a socially controlled process that involves interactional negotiation. They claim, namely, that each language convention — phatic, rhetic, illocutionary, rhetorical, procedural, etc. — is a lineage of reproduced precedents that put some constraints on what can be regarded as saying and doing the same, but underdetermine the exact properties of its new members. • The paper contributes to metasemantics and metapragmatics. • It offers an Austinian alternative to the Gricean programme. • Language conventions are lineages of past uses having different degrees of salience. • Following a convention is a social process involving meaning negotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]