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In this paper we link between two scholarly traditions that share the goal of understanding how people accomplish the achievement of living together: linguistic-politeness and diplomacy. We look at a specific speech event—presidential introductory conversations during credential ceremonies, in which the interlocutors are simultaneously talking on behalf of themselves and the states they represent. On the basis of 23 introductory conversations at Israel's presidential residence. We aim to understand how good relations are cultivated in diplomatic conversations and the resources and strategies hosting presidents and foreign ambassadors employ to establish amicable interpersonal and interstate relations. The infusion of elite discourse, institutional discourse, and initial interactions brought forth in our study a gamut of bonding strategies applied in the process of rapport management between state representatives. The president and ambassadors did their best to avoid sensitive issues and managed the attending audience as a resource for enhancing interpersonal relations, advancing the interaction, and solving problems at both the interstate and interpersonal levels. In the Conclusion we underline the importance of analyzing actual conversations between individuals who simultaneously embody themselves and their states in order to understand how relationships between large social entities are managed. • The paper links between two related scholarly traditions: politeness and diplomacy. • It asks how amicable interpersonal and interstate relations are cultivated in diplomatic conversations. • We analyze 23 introductory conversations between Israel's president and foreign ambassadors. • A variety of strategies are applied for bonding between state representatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

The current paper aims to discuss the impact of pre-posing a subordinate clause (as in connective p, q) on the overall meaning of a conjunction. This issue has traditionally been explored from a functional perspective and, more specifically, in relation to 'topic', 'framework' or other related notions. The current work reveals that, among the inadequacies that a topic-based account presents, it essentially falls short of a context-sensitive and unified perspective. In response to these inadequacies, a relevance-theoretic approach is proposed on procedural grounds. More specifically, it is argued that a sentence-initial subordinate clause, or, more accurately, the entire context associated with it, serves as evidence for the delivery of procedure r, namely the inference that the main-clause-proposition that may follow will be relevant to the foregoing pre-posed context. From a communicative point of view, the procedural impact of sentence-initial subordinate clauses is justified as a useful rhetorical instrument that serves to manipulate the hearer's epistemic assessment of the main-clause-proposition as genuinely relevant to the context associated with the (pre-posed) subordinate-clause proposition. • Exploration of the impact of a sentence-initial subordinate clause on a conjunction. • Discussion of the problems connected to traditional approaches of a functional origin. • Proposal of a procedural approach within a relevance-theoretic conception. • Discussion of the role of epistemic vigilance in employing sentence-initial clauses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inference is central to pragmatic theories of meaning and communication, but most studies of inference to date have been undertaken in adjacent fields rather than in pragmatics. The aim of this special issue is to bring together pragmatic perspectives on inference in order to further our understanding of the role that inference - as both a product and a process - plays in pragmatic models of communication. This aim is realised through a set of six papers that collectively address key questions arising when we go beyond the traditional focus in pragmatics on inferences by the hearer about the speaker's intended meaning. These articles draw from a range of different methodological and theoretical standpoints to examine the inferential, interactional, and developmental processes that underpin different types of pragmatic inference. It is concluded that more sophisticated theoretical accounts of pragmatic inference are needed to account for the wide range of inferential phenomena that can be empirically observed in communication. • Demonstrates the importance of studying inference in pragmatics. • Shows pragmatic inference goes beyond hearers inferring speaker's intended meaning. • Highlights the role that inference plays in pragmatic models of communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how interspecies greeting routines between humans and horses/dogs are organized. The aim is to understand how humans and animals jointly organize 'becoming socially co-present' (Pillet-Shore, 2008). The data comprises 12 h of video recordings with 30 humans, 40 horses and 7 dogs participating in every-day activities such as walks, dinner parties and grooming sessions. Multimodal interaction analysis (e.g., Mondada, 2019) is used to investigate how humans and horses/dogs initiate and respond to greetings, and image based transcriptions of human and animal actions are used to avoid species hierarchy. The analyses reveal that humans and animals make a distinction between being physically co-present and socially co-present in interspecies interaction, and that all involved species take initiatives to greet and respond to such initiatives. The findings show both similarities and differences to human–human greetings, which is are addressed in a concluding discussion. By including animals' systematic communicative actions in the investigation of social life and co-operative action we gain knowledge on how understanding both within and across species boundaries is achieved, which may have implications for how humanity views other living species on the planet. • Humans and horses/dogs take initiatives to greet each other. • Humans and horses/dogs collaborate to become socially co-present. • Interspecies greetings have similarities and differences to human–human greetings. • Studying interspecies greetings increases our understanding of communication. • Image based transcriptions of animal actions avoids species hierarchy. [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]

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]

This paper explores the interactional pragmatic characteristics of multimodal memetic content facilitated by Twitter affordances, notably the functions of retweeting and quote tweeting. These Twitter affordances enable reposting a previous multimodal tweet (with or without a preceding commentary), which is conducive to nested memetic posts involving entextualised multimodal quotations and/or to memes interwoven into conversational exchanges. These retweeting practices also promote different forms of recontextualisation and user engagement with the original multimodal post, ranging from content co-construction (dubbed "pragmatic entrenchment") to repurposing (referred to as "repragmatisation"). The theoretical proposals concerning Twitter memes are illustrated with examples taken from a manually compiled dataset of 893 (quote) tweeted memes collected between 25th and 30th November 2022 and originating from two viral memes that satirically announce the formation of NAFO's New Fella Land and Královec on Russian lands in response to Russia's illegitimate annexation of Ukrainian territories based on sham referenda held in late September 2022. These two memetic constructs are shown to have inspired pragmatic entrenchment (involving joint fantasising among other things), as well as repragmatisation through quote tweets which query or question the parent memes or their spin-offs and apply them for new communicative purposes. • Multimodal and interactional characteristics of memes thanks to Twitter's (X's) affordances. • Quote tweeting as an entextualisation and re/en-contextualisation tool in producing and sharing memes. • Entrenchment and repragmatisation as meaning-making processes in quote tweeted memes. • Multimodal joint fantasising via (quote) tweeting New Fella Land and Královec memes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The amount of outrage language, hate speech and strong language in digital communication is steadily growing, but academic studies on how to deal linguistically with anger and outrage are still largely lacking. Social science studies focus mainly on behavioral actions, while only a few investigate situations in which aggression is successfully handled verbally. On the other hand, complaint handling via webcare has received considerable scholarly attention, but its focus was never on de-escalation techniques. This paper explores what verbal de-escalation techniques can be learned from webcare employees who succeeded in satisfying complainants. More specifically, it combines insights from the (im)politeness framework and conversational human voice approach (CHV) to show that webcare practitioners have developed a tacit consensus on how to use language to deal with complaints. In a study with a mixed methods approach, a Twitter (now X) sample of responses to complaints is explored to identify linguistic and rhetorical features that encourage de-escalation. Thirteen features, that can be grouped into three categories, contributed to mollify the initial complainant. They can be characterized as markers of empathy (1), authenticity (2) and verbal accommodation (3) and they may help to calm heated debates in domains other than webcare. This article extends previous research by merging both pragma-linguistic and corporate communication taxonomies of complaint handling routines, adding forms of stylistic internal modification as possibly successful de-escalation features. • Webcare policy on complaint handling serves to uncover de-escalation techniques for outrage language. • Linguistic and rhetorical features that create empathy, authenticity and accommodation help to defuse heated Twitter discussions. • The uptake of responses to complaints helps to distinguish between successful and unsuccessful complaint handling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the utilization of Arabic tautological expressions, provided by customers as a reiteration of an element of an English compound such as 'apple pie' [ fatˁi:rit ʔabil bai 'an apple pie pie'], from the perspective of Relevance Theory (RT). Data was collected from 90 participants, divided into two groups: 40 native speaker informants recruited from various shopping malls, and 50 shop assistants in Amman, Jordan. The first group was interviewed, whereas the second group filled out a multiple-choice task aimed at identifying the type of expression they typically receive when taking orders from customers. The data analysis revealed that Arabic tautological expressions are more frequently used compared to other alternatives. Drawing on RT, we argue that Arabic tautological expressions function as an ostensive stimulus. We propose that tautological expressions, utilized within a code-switching context, function as a means of pragmatic enrichment. This occurs through the process of ad hoc construction, wherein speakers refine the originally encoded concept to convey corrective or contrasting meanings. Instead of lacking information, the use of tautological phrases can be seen as a pragmatic tactic to maximize relevance by minimizing cognitive effort, optimizing successful communication of the intended meaning, and reinforcing contextual effects. • Examining the use of Arabic tautology in English compounds provided by customers. • Arabic tautologies are preferred and more frequently used than alternatives. • Drawing on RT, Arabic tautological expressions function as an ostensive stimulus. • The use of tautology conveys corrective or contrastive meanings via ad hoc concept construction. • The use of tautological phrases can be seen as a pragmatic tactic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines an understudied way of refusing: counters, i.e. utterances which do not only block one course of action but put forward an alternative. An interactional approach to pragmatic meaning was taken to examine the content, design, and interpersonal implications of counters in (semi-)informal future-action negotiations. Regarding their content, it was found that counters can retain the distribution of cost/benefit of initial proffers (neutral), change them to the refuser's benefit (egoistic), or change them to the profferer's benefit (altruistic). Regarding their design, it was found that counters can be formatted as either interpersonally delicate or non-delicate actions – irrespective of their content. This suggests that specific benefactive chances are not intrinsically associated with specific interpersonal effects, e.g. egoistic and altruistic counters do not necessarily indicate interpersonal trouble or guarantee harmony, respectively. Rather, it is the design which has particular interpersonal implications, with counters formatted as non-delicate actions being hearable as problematising and/or treated as problematic. It is furthermore argued that counters are more constrained in terms of design than initial proffers – which may be formatted as non-delicate without negative interpersonal implications – and that this constraint results from their sequential position and the prior speaker's right to make a proffer. • Counters may change benefactives to the refuser's or the profferer's benefit. • Benefactive changes do not inherently indicate interpersonal conflict or harmony. • All counter types may be designed as interpersonally delicate actions. • This is due to their sequential position and profferers' proximal deontic rights. • Non-delicate counter design is hearable as problematising and can be problematised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]