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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]

A murder of a Slovak investigative journalist in February 2018 led to a wave of massive rallies across the country and abroad which demanded a fair investigation of the murder as well as some political concessions. The grass-roots protests were held under the slogan Za slušné Slovensko (For a Decent Slovakia) in which the concept of slušnosť (decency) was chosen to echo the ethos of the November 1989 Velvet Revolution. In a wave of ensuing societal discourses about (im)politeness, slušnosť has proven to be a highly contested term. This contestedness is examined in two threads from Internet discussion fora which are attached to news articles reporting on March 9, 2019 mass gatherings. The analysis demonstrates how posters negotiate their understandings of slušnosť with regard to their group-based stances and identities. Also, the paper points out the indexical resources which posters use to construct their own and others' identities and demonstrates how (im)politeness, morality and identity construction are closely interrelated. The paper adopts the approach of ʽpoliteness as a social practiceʼ and uses ʽtactics of intersubjectivityʼ as the main analytical tool. The metapragmatic analysis of a societal change is contextualized within wider socio-political developments in post-1989 Slovakia. • A murder of a Slovak journalist in February 2018 sparked mass protests held under the slogan of ʽFor a Decent Slovakiaʼ. • In the slogan, the concept of slušnosť (decency) was chosen to echo the ethos of Czechoslovak 1989 Velvet Revolution. • In the ensuing societal discourses slušnosť has proven to be a highly contested term across social groups. • Internet discussion for a demonstrate how understandings of slušnosť are linked to posters´ stances and group identities. • After the ʽrevolution of decencyʼ of 2018, the argumentativity of slušnosť has contributed to societal group-based divisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides some new insights into the dual function of expressive speech acts discussed in pragmatic theory as either expressions of genuine emotions or conventionalised acts of courtesy. Drawing on the framework of interpersonal pragmatics, it analyses signs displayed on the doors of closed businesses in Athens and London during the first lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic. These closure signs are characterised by a heavy use of relational features, including four expressive speech acts, namely greetings, apologies, thanks and wishes, which form the focus of the analysis. The relational work performed by these speech acts reflects the social changes brought about by the pandemic as well as the business owners' attempts to retain their customers. The expressive speech acts featured on the signs are evaluated against the norms set out by the genre of closure signs. The comparative angle of the study, on the other hand, links the discussion to norms related to the display of emotions and to the use of conventionalised formulae in the two countries under study, thus revealing culture-specific perspectives on the dual function of expressive speech acts. • Covid-19 signage displayed during the first lockdown contains numerous expressive speech acts performing relational work. • The functions of greetings, apologies, thanks and wishes on these signs are compared to their use on standard closure signs. • Expressive speech acts are more frequent and more effusive on signs found in the UK than on signs found in Greece. • The use of expressive speech acts as either expressions of emotions or formulaic acts of courtesy is culture-specific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides some new insights into the dual function of expressive speech acts discussed in pragmatic theory as either expressions of genuine emotions or conventionalised acts of courtesy. Drawing on the framework of interpersonal pragmatics, it analyses signs displayed on the doors of closed businesses in Athens and London during the first lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic. These closure signs are characterised by a heavy use of relational features, including four expressive speech acts, namely greetings, apologies, thanks and wishes, which form the focus of the analysis. The relational work performed by these speech acts reflects the social changes brought about by the pandemic as well as the business owners' attempts to retain their customers. The expressive speech acts featured on the signs are evaluated against the norms set out by the genre of closure signs. The comparative angle of the study, on the other hand, links the discussion to norms related to the display of emotions and to the use of conventionalised formulae in the two countries under study, thus revealing culture-specific perspectives on the dual function of expressive speech acts. • Covid-19 signage displayed during the first lockdown contains numerous expressive speech acts performing relational work. • The functions of greetings, apologies, thanks and wishes on these signs are compared to their use on standard closure signs. • Expressive speech acts are more frequent and more effusive on signs found in the UK than on signs found in Greece. • The use of expressive speech acts as either expressions of emotions or formulaic acts of courtesy is culture-specific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public apologies are one of the most prominent examples of migration of speech acts from the private to the public sphere and now commonly feature in a wide range of public and media settings. Judging by the last two decades, the act of public apology is clearly in the process of social change, although perhaps more particularly in English-speaking cultures. The paper inscribes itself in a growing and vigorous literature on public apologies and public apology processes and aims to reveal public apology felicity conditions as represented by newswriters. Their scripts reporting what successful public apologies are or should be are therefore investigated using a corpus of over 200 apology press uptakes (reactions to public apologies in the press or ‘metalinguistic discussion’, Davies, 2011 ) taken from popular and quality British newspapers spanning a one-year period (207 articles). A smaller comparable French dataset (61 articles) is also included for contrastive purposes. Explicitly evaluative metapragmatic comments identified in these two corpora of apology press uptakes are the main source of data. The apology felicity conditions identified in the discourse of these comments in the British press are presented in the form of a ‘model’. The latter is interpreted in the light of Olshtain and Cohen's widely-recognized apology speech act set ( Olshtain and Cohen, 1983; Olshtain, 1989 ). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]