The Pragmatics of Person and Imperatives in Sign Language of the Netherlands

We present new evidence against a grammatical distinction between second and third person in Sign Language of The Netherlands (NGT). More precisely, we show how pushing this distinction into the domain of pragmatics helps account for an otherwise puzzling fact about the NGT imperative: not only is it used to command your addressee, it can also express ‘non-addressee-oriented commands’

Non-situational functions of demonstrative noun phrases in Lingala (Bantu)

This paper examines the non-situational (i.e., non-exophoric) pragmatic functions of the three adnominal demonstratives, oyo, wand, and yango in the Bantu language Lingala. An examination of natural language corpora reveals that, although native-speaker intuitions sanction the use of oyo as an anaphor in demonstrative NPs, this demonstrative is hardly ever used in that role. It also reveals that wand, which has both situational and discourse-referential capacities, is used more frequently than the exclusively anaphoric demonstrative yango. It is explained that wand appears in a wide range of non-coreferential expression types, in coreferential expression types involving low-salience referents, and in coreferential expression types that both involve highly salient referents and include the speaker's desire to signal a shift in the mental representation of the referent towards a pejorative reading. The use of yango, on the other hand, is only licensed in cases of coreferentiality involving highly salient referents and implying continuation of the same mental representation of the referent. A specific section is devoted to charting the possible grammaticalization paths followed by the demonstratives. Conclusions are drawn for pragmatic theory formation in terms of the relation between form (yango vs. wand) and function (coreferentiality vs. non-coreferentiality)

On the role of domain ontologies in the design of domain-specific visual modeling langages

Domain-Specific Visual Modeling Languages should provide notations and abstractions that suitably support problem solving in well-defined application domains. From their user’s perspective, the language’s modeling primitives must be intuitive and expressive enough in capturing all intended aspects of domain conceptualizations. Over the years formal and explicit representations of domain conceptualizations have been developed as domain ontologies. In this paper, we show how the design of these languages can benefit from conceptual tools developed by the ontology engineering community

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF BANYUMASAN CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURES

To mean what you say is sometimes problematic in daily conversation, moreover in some indigenous dialects. It requires comprehensive context to achieve the core of communication. So does in Banyumasan. Banyumasan or Banyumas dialect is a variant which is found along the flow of Serayu river. The river flows from Sindoro-Sumbing Mountains (Koentjaraningrat, 1984:23). Banyumas dialect is one of some variants of Javanese language. Banyumasan has some differences compared to standard Javanese spoken in Jogjakarta, Surakarta and Semarang. Those differences are also reflected in the characteristics of conversational implicatures found in this dialect. Conversational implicaure is a proposition that is implied by the utterance of sentence in a context even though that proposition is not a part of nor an entailment of what was actually said (Grice, 1975; Gazdar, 1979). The characteristics of conversational implicatures are calculability, cancellability, non-detachability, non-conventionality, and indeterminacy. (Grice, 1975; Levinson, 1983; Thomas, 1996; dan Cruse, 2004). A dialect has different characteristics compared to other dialects of the same language and so does the characteristic o

Culture as Non-Consensus: Exploring Coherence Among Native Speakers’ Perceptions of German Expressions of Affection

From early in their learning experience, foreign language (FL) learners at American universities explore socio-cultural connotations that, it is argued, are signified by FL words. Textbook authors and teachers follow an implicit canon of difference, a list of iconic words that over time—and without the benefit of empirical evidence—have come to represent essential differences in outlook between their native and the FL culture (Kubota, 2004). Despite the fast progression of the theory of teaching culture in FL learning (Kramsch, 2015; Risager, 2015), large empirical gaps remain. Todate, there is little evidence that native speakers (NSs) of the FL perceive their cultural practices, including the cultural contexts in which language is used, homogenously enough to warrant their status as cultural traits. Using the example of expressions of affection, this exploratory study drew on qualitative and quantitative questionnaire data to investigate whether German NSs’ (N=52) accounts of their own and of most fellow Germans’ language behavior converged enough to derive a comprehensive and reliable cultural norm. Results indicated a lack of consensus among German NSs’ self-reported views, eluding the assumption of a pertinent community-specific norm. Implications for FL teaching and learning, as well as directions for future research, are discussed

A preliminary bibliography on focus

[I]n its present form, the bibliography contains approximately 1100 entries. Bibliographical work is never complete, and the present one is still modest in a number of respects. It is not annotated, and it still contains a lot of mistakes and inconsistencies. It has nevertheless reached a stage which justifies considering the possibility of making it available to the public. The first step towards this is its pre-publication in the form of this working paper. […] The bibliography is less complete for earlier years. For works before 1970, the bibliographies of Firbas and Golkova 1975 and Tyl 1970 may be consulted, which have not been included here

Action and Ethics. A Historical Perspective on the Late Frankfurt School (Apel, Habermas, Wellmer)

I shall delineate what I see as the strength and relevance of transcendental-pragmatics within the intellectual setting in the post-war period. I shall indicate how the discussions within transcendental-pragmatics have revealed inherent challenges, while at the same time the intellectual and institutional surroundings have changed unfavorably during the last few decades. And I shall briefly indicate how these inherent challenges and new constellations could and should be met, to the effect that transcendental-pragmatics could reveal its philosophical importance and practical relevance under changed conditions; the catchword here is gradual (melioristic) reasoning

Unity in the Variety of Quotation

This chapter argues that while quotation marks are polysemous, the thread that runs through all uses of quotation marks that involve reference to expressions is pure quotation, in which an expression formed by enclosing another expression in quotation marks refers to that enclosed expression. We defend a version of the so-called disquotational theory of pure quotation and show how this device is used in direct discourse and attitude attributions, in exposition in scholarly contexts, and in so-called mixed quotation in indirect discourse and attitude attributions. We argue that uses of quotation marks that extend beyond pure quotation have two features in common. First, the expressions appearing in quotation marks are intended to be understood, and that they are intended to be understood is essential to the function that such quotations play in communication, though this does not always involve the expressions contributing their extensional properties to fixing truth conditions for the sentences in which they appear. Second, they appeal to a relation to the expression appearing in quotation marks that plays a role in determining the truth conditions of the sentences in which they appear

LOAN WORDS AS SHAPERS OF IDENTITY IN SEVENTEENTHCENTURY MALAY: A HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS STUDY OF CHRISTIAN SONGS INTRODUCED BY THE VOC

The presence of loan words in a language shows the long-standing interactions between that particular language as a recepient and its donors. Over time, these loan words are absorbed into the recipient language and they become a part of the linguistic identity of its speakers. Very often the speakers no longer realize that these words originally came from another language. This essay looks at seventeenth-century texts of Christian songs in Malay that were first introduced to the East Indies by the VOC. By looking at the presence of several loan words, mostly coming from Arabic, Sanskrit, and Dutch this essay seeks to explain how these loan words form the identity of speakers of Malay, not just among Christians who sang these songs, but also the speakers of this lingua franca who lived all over the East Indies archipelago