Conceptual fluency and the use of situation-bound utterances in L2

Recent research has found that L2 learners of high grammatical proficiency will not necessarily show concomitant pragmatic skills. Some scholars explained non-native-like production by the lack or low level of conceptual fluency and metaphorical competence in the target language. This paper, however, claims that this explanation is only partly acceptable because pragmatic skills in an L2 do not necessarily reflect conceptual fluency in the target language properly because individual variables rather than conceptual fluency play a decisive role in the selection and use of these pragmatic units. In order to investigate the validity of this hypothesis a survey was conducted with 88 Non-Native Speakers (NNSs) and 33 Native Speakers of English (NSs) who were given three types of tests: two discourse-completion tests, a problem-solving test and a dialog-interpretation test. Data were analyzed for two variables: cultural specificity of SBUs and individual learner strategies. The findings of the survey demonstrated the existence of three developmental stages which are characterized respectively by strong L1-culture transfer, false generalization, individual choice. Students in the third stage tend to choose SBUs on affective grounds and reject those pragmatic units which they find too culture specific

The role of salience in processing pragmatic units

The goal of the paper is twofold. Firstly, it explains the relevance of the Graded Salience Hypothesis (Giora 1997; 2003; Kecskés 2001) to pragmatics research, arguing that although this hypothesis is a psycholinguistic theory it may contribute significantly to our understanding of pragmatic processing. Secondly, it will be claimed and demonstrated through examples that the salient meaning of lexical units constituting utterances in conversation plays a more important role in comprehension than has been believed by the supporters of linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic theories that consider context to be the main source of actual contextual meaning

Context-dependency and impoliteness in intercultural communication

There has been a great deal of research on impoliteness focusing on one particular language or cross-cultural differences between languages (e.g. Bousfield 2008; Bousfield and Locher 2008; Culpeper 2005, 2009; Haugh 2007, 2011; Kienpointner 1997). However, much less attention has been paid to impoliteness in intercultural communication in which all or some speakers communicate in a language other than their native tongue

Modes of wording direct into indirect speech in intercultural communication

This paper aims to determine the modes of wording indirec

Pragmatic Maxims and Presumptions in Legal Interpretation

The fields of linguistic pragmatics and legal interpretation are deeply interrelated. The purpose of this paper is to show how pragmatics and the developments in argumentation theory can contribute to the debate on legal interpretation. The relation between the pragmatic maxims and the presumptions underlying the legal canons are brought to light, unveiling the principles that underlie the types of argument usually used to justify a construction. The Gricean maxims and the arguments of legal interpretation are regarded as presumptions subject to default used to justify an interpretation. This approach can allow one to trace the different legal interpretive arguments back to their basic underlying presumptions, so that they can be compared, ordered, and assessed according to their defeasibility conditions. This approach allows one to understand the difference between various types of interpretive canons, and their strength in justifying an interpretation

A Dialogic Approach to Pragmatics

This paper focuses on how the limits of pragmatics - as long as it is restricted to the analysis of one utterance at a time - are overcome by including the hearer not only as interpreter who tries to understand the speaker’s utterance but as an interlocutor who tries to come to an understanding with the speaker. The goal of the paper is not to describe and analyze the dialogue approach rather explain what inner developments in the pragmatics paradigm have made it necessary to move in a dialogic direction, specifically emphasizing the importance of evaluating speaker meaning from the perspective of the speaker rather than from the perspective of the hearer and the double role of the interlocutor (speaker-hearer)

Context-dependency and impoliteness in intercultural communication

There has been a great deal of research on impoliteness focusing on one particular language or cross-cultural differences between languages (e.g. Bousfield 2008; Bousfield and Locher 2008; Culpeper 2005, 2009; Haugh 2007, 2011; Kienpointner 1997). However, much less attention has been paid to impoliteness in intercultural communication in which all or some speakers communicate in a language other than their native tongue