I Will Wow You! Pragmatic Interjections Revisited

This study sets out to focus on the nature of changes some major interjections have gone through. To achieve this end, different processes of word formation and semantic change are put under scrutiny. In this vein, the significant role of frequency and the gradual movement of these changes are underscored. Additionally, the study demonstrates how what is generally known as reanalysis can account for functional shifts. The study also touches upon what is usually described as innovation.Key words: Innovation; Interjection; Reanalysis; Semantic chang

Covertly communicated hate speech: A corpus-assisted pragmatic study

While online hate speech is a perennial problem of modern times, there is still a lack of academic research on the topic. This could be attributed to the fact that hate speech does not always have clearly distinguishable linguistic features. As such, hate speech could well be communicated covertly. Consequently, and in order to better understand the phenomenon of ‘covertly communicated’ hate speech, one would need to first investigate the overarching thematic and discursive patterns in which hate speech is rooted. This study is a step in this direction. Assisted by a corpus-informed pragmatic analysis of hate language on Instagram, it focuses on hate language directed at Afghan immigrants in Iran, a rarely explored context involving one of the world's most widespread population movements and displacement patterns. The findings of the study lay bare the fact that, in the corpus under investigation, overt expressions of hate were few and far between, to the extent that they did not have meaningful salience in the data. In this respect, the study indicates how a number of recurring discursive patterns provide the foundation on which covert ways of expressing hate are based

Does Reading Literary Texts Have Any Impact on EFL Learners’ Vocabulary Retention?

Abstract: This study seeks to find out whether EFL learners’ exposure to literary texts is in any way different from their exposure to nonliterary texts with respect to their ability to deal with related vocabulary items. Furthermore, the present study also sets out to examine whether EFL learners perform differently on reading comprehension tests derived from literary texts compared with those derived from nonliterary ones. The analysis of the data brought to light the fact that exposure to a plethora of literary texts does not imperatively bring any significant gain in the comprehension of literary or nonliterary texts. Even so, it is concluded that exposure to vocabulary items in literary texts may, in point of fact, help EFL learners to build up solid vocabulary knowledge. Key words: Extensive Reading; Literature; Reading Comprehension; Vocabulary Acquisition Résumé: Cette étude cherche à découvrir s’il y aurait des différences aux niveaux des résultats en comparant avec l’exposition des étudiants d'EFL aux textes littéraires et des étudiants d’EFL qui sont exposes aux textes non littéraires en ce qui concerne de leur capacité de traiter les articles relatifs de vocabulaire. En outre, la présente étude également mise à examiner si les étudiants d'EFL exécutent différemment sur des essais de compréhension de lecture dérivés des textes littéraires comparés à ceux dérivés de les non littéraire. L'analyse des données a mis en évidence le fait que l'exposition à une pléthore de textes littéraires n'apporte impérativement aucun gain significatif dans la compréhension des textes littéraires ou non littéraire. Néanmoins, on le conclut que l'exposition aux articles de vocabulaire en textes littéraires peut, en effet, aider des étudiants d'EFL à accumuler la connaissance solide de vocabulaire. Mots clés: Lecture étendue; Littérature; Compréhension de lecture; Acquisition de vocabulair

General Extenders in Persian Discourse: Frequency and Grammatical Distribution

This study tries to investigate the frequency and grammatical distribution of general extenders in Persian. The analysis is based on a corpus of informal conversations. On some occasions, a comparison will also be made with the corpus of informal English compiled and analyzed by Overstreet (1999, 2005). The results of this study lay bare the fact that Persian speakers use adjunctive general extenders more frequently than disjunctive ones. It will also be demonstrated that Persian speakers use general extenders both at clause final and clause-internal positions. Finally, Persian general extenders will be examined with reference to their grammatical agreement requirements.Keywords: Discourse marker; frequency; general extender; grammatical distribution; Persia

Alternative Approaches to Politeness and Impoliteness: An Introduction

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Moral impoliteness

This study is concerned with the increasing use of impolite language that one observes during interactions which take place over the Internet. Drawing on a number of Instagram posts uploaded by various socialites and public figures, this study proposes the notion of a ‘Basic Moral Perspective’ as being a window to an understanding of the nature of some impolite language witnessed on social media. I define ‘Basic Moral Perspective’ as the moral predisposition which interactants possess. As the study shows, in contexts in which there appears to be little relational history between interactants, the ‘Basic Moral Perspective’, amongst other factors, that interactants bring to an interaction can potentially result in impolite language. As will be shown throughout the study, the interactants’ Basic Moral Perspective can provide a clue as to how certain interactions are responded to

Panegyrists, Vagueness and the Pragmeme

This chapter is concerned with mourning ceremonies held for Shiite Muslims in the city of Isfahan, Iran. The chapter examines how in Persian funeral culture “rules of language and society synergize in determining meaning” (Capone A, J Pragmatics 37:1355–1371, 2005: 1357). Grounded in Mey’s (Pragmatics. Blackwell, Oxford, 2001; Pragmatic acts. In: Brown K (ed) Encyclopedia of language and linguistics (Online Version). Elsevier, Oxford, 2006) and Capone’s (La linguistique 46:3–21, 2010) conceptualisation of the pragmeme – a situated speech act – the present study seeks to explain how the talk given and monodies sung by professional panegyrists are supposed to provide solace and comfort to the relatives of the deceased. To this end, I shall draw on a corpus personally collected in the context of the mosque, where relatives and friends typically gather to mourn the deceased. In this respect, I will explain how panegyrists use vague language in such an ‘elastic’ (Zhang G, Elastic language: how and why we stretch our words. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2015) way as to provide solace to the bereaved family. The study reveals how vague forms that lack full semantic content and are thus dependent on shared knowledge are employed by panegyrists to bring about effects that correspond to the requirements of the mourning sessions under investigation

Speech Act Disagreement among Young Women in Iran

In their article Speech Act Disagreement among Young Women in Iran Vahid Parvaresh and Abbas Eslami Rasekh investigate the effects of solidarity and deference proposed by Ronald Scollon and Suzanne Scollon on the ways in which young women in Iran perform the speech act of disagreement in their own language and culture. Their data has been analyzed using Geoffrey Leech\u27s classification of illocutionary functions which is based on the social goal of establishing and maintaining comity. Special care has also been exercised to take the respondents\u27 points of view into consideration. Parvaresh and Rasekh suggest that in a non-Western Islamic culture such as Iran, the considerations of deference might override those of solidarity when young women want to disagree with their close male friends. In this way, they argue that young women in Iran employ conflictives, which have the most impolite intention, mostly when and where their addressee is of the same sex

Book review: Louise Cummings (ed.), Research in clinical pragmatics (Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology 11). Dordrecht: Springer, 2017. Pp. xxiii + 649

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On the Morality of Taking Offence

This study explores occasions during which offendees make intuitive judgments about, or offer reasons for, why they feel offended. In this respect, and by drawing on a corpus of online Twitter posts featuring #offended, the study discusses some of the judgments and reasons that offendees most frequently refer to when ‘sanctioning’ their offence. The study reveals that taking offence involves the offence taker attributing blame to the person who has caused the offence. These attributions of blame appear to be rooted in higher-order moral norms and are typically couched in the format of a complaint about the behaviour in question with a view to causing some remedial action on the part of the person who has caused the offence