Linguistic Politeness in Britain and Uruguay


Book Description

The first well-researched contrastive pragmatic analysis of requests and apologies in British English and Uruguayan Spanish. It takes the form of a cross-cultural corpus-based analysis using male and female native speakers of each language and systematically alternating the same social variables in both cultures. The data are elicited from a non-prescriptive open role-play yielding requests and apologies. The analysis of the speech acts is based on an adaptation of the categorical scheme developed by Blum-Kulka et al. (1989). The results show that speakers of English and Spanish differ in their choice of (in)directness levels, head-act modifications, and the politeness types of males and females in both cultures. Reference to an extensive bibliography and the thorough discussion of methodological issues concerning speech act studies deserve the attention of students of pragmatics as well as readers interested in cultural matters.




English Historical Linguistics 2006: Lexical and semantic change


Book Description

The papers collected in this volume were first presented at the 14th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (Bergamo, 2006). Alongside studies of syntax, morphology, and dialectology, published in two sister volumes, many innovative contributions focused on semantics, pragmatics and register variation. A rich variety of state-of-the-art studies and plenary lectures by acknowledged world experts in the field bears witness to the quality of the scholarly interest in this field of research. In all the contributions, well-established methods combine with new theoretical approaches, in an attempt to shed more light on phenomena that have hitherto remained unexplored, or have only just begun to be investigated. The accurate peer-reviewed selection ensures the methodological homogeneity of the papers.




Linguistic Politeness Across Boundaries


Book Description

This volume includes 14 papers investigating politeness phenomena in Greece and Turkey, the cultural cross-roads of Europe, Asia and the Middle East. It reflects current research and provides observations of and findings in patterns of linguistic politeness in a geographical area other than the much studied English speaking ones. The book appeals to professionals and students interested in a broader perspective of language use in its social context.Articles in the collection are empirically rather than theoretically oriented and examine realisations of politeness in relation to social parameters. The chapters have been arranged in pairs (Greek/Turkish), treating the following related issues: firstly a more general ethnographic picture of the two societies, the variables of power/status in classroom and other interaction, solidarity in advice-giving and the use of approbatory expressions, service encounters and the differential use of language by males and females, the use of interruptions in television talk, and finally compliments.




Exploring Politeness in Business Emails


Book Description

Exploring Politeness in Business Emails explores the contextual complexities of workplace emails by comparing British English and Peninsular Spanish directive speech events and systematically assessing the impact of contextual factors. Through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis, and the inclusion of metapragmatic insights in the interpretation of the results, the book offers an innovative approach to the study of politeness. The book partially contradicts previous assumptions about English and Spanish directives and provides new insights into the role of politeness in the workplace. By offering a meticulous account of the linguistic choices made by the English and Spanish first language users and the contextual factors influencing these choices, the book suggests far-reaching implications for future research in cross-cultural pragmatics and business discourse, as well as practical implications relevant for academics, postgraduate students and practitioners interested in these fields.




English Historical Linguistics 2006


Book Description

The papers collected in this volume were first presented at the 14th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (Bergamo, 2006). Alongside studies of syntax, morphology, and dialectology, published in two sister volumes, many innovative contributions focused on semantics, pragmatics and register variation. A rich variety of state-of-the-art studies and plenary lectures by acknowledged world experts in the field bears witness to the quality of the scholarly interest in this field of research. In all the contributions, well-established methods combine with new theoretical approaches, in an attempt to shed more light on phenomena that have hitherto remained unexplored, or have only just begun to be investigated. The accurate peer-reviewed selection ensures the methodological homogeneity of the papers.




English Historical Linguistics 2008


Book Description

The fifteen papers selected for Volume II of English Historical Linguistics 2008 have a different emphasis than those in Volume I (CILT 314, Lenker et al. 2010). Nine concentrate on the development of the English vocabulary and six on historical text linguistics, including the development of text-types and of politeness strategies. Of those in the former group, three have their emphasis on etymology, three on semantic fields, and three on word-formation, although some cover more than one of these areas. The topics include: the treatment of etymological problems in the OED; deverbal derivations formed from native verbs and from loan-verbs; the role of metaphor and metonymy in the evolution of word-fields. The field of historical text linguistics is introduced by a general survey, which is followed by more specific studies focussing on 15th-century legal and administrative texts from Scotland, on early 15th-century women’s mystical writings, on medical recipes from the 16th to the 18th centuries and on pauper letters from 18th-century Essex. The book should appeal to scholars interested in English etymology, the history of semantic fields and of word-formation, as well as in historical text linguistics, politeness strategies and standardization. It provides not only theoretical considerations but also a wealth of case studies.




Politeness in Europe


Book Description

Politeness as practised across 22 European societies, firmly set within critical debates developed since the 1980s, is here presented in ways related to concrete situations in which language-users interact with one another to achieve their goals. Areas covered include types of politeness, forms of address, negotiation and small-talk in various contexts.




Ugandan English


Book Description

Ugandan English is a variety that has scarcely been noticed in past research. This timely volume brings together African and European scholars in a first-ever collection of articles that offer comprehensive discussions of the historical and present-day sociolinguistics of English in Uganda and fine-grained analyses of the structural characteristics of and attitudes to this hitherto largely unknown variety. Using rich archive, corpus, and interview data as well as ethnographic and observational methods, the various contributions paint a comprehensive picture of Ugandan English as distinct from other East African Englishes and as characterized by nativisation despite a still strong exonormative orientation, reflecting the modern nation’s status as a post-protectorate under the influence of globalisation. Apart from advancing our understanding of Ugandan English itself, the individual chapters contribute to theoretical debates on language contact and variation as regards the influence of substrate languages, founder populations, language ideologies and socio-economic factors.




Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics


Book Description

The first edition of ELL (1993, Ron Asher, Editor) was hailed as "the field's standard reference work for a generation". Now the all-new second edition matches ELL's comprehensiveness and high quality, expanded for a new generation, while being the first encyclopedia to really exploit the multimedia potential of linguistics. * The most authoritative, up-to-date, comprehensive, and international reference source in its field * An entirely new work, with new editors, new authors, new topics and newly commissioned articles with a handful of classic articles * The first Encyclopedia to exploit the multimedia potential of linguistics through the online edition * Ground-breaking and International in scope and approach * Alphabetically arranged with extensive cross-referencing * Available in print and online, priced separately. The online version will include updates as subjects develop ELL2 includes: * c. 7,500,000 words * c. 11,000 pages * c. 3,000 articles * c. 1,500 figures: 130 halftones and 150 colour * Supplementary audio, video and text files online * c. 3,500 glossary definitions * c. 39,000 references * Extensive list of commonly used abbreviations * List of languages of the world (including information on no. of speakers, language family, etc.) * Approximately 700 biographical entries (now includes contemporary linguists) * 200 language maps in print and online Also available online via ScienceDirect – featuring extensive browsing, searching, and internal cross-referencing between articles in the work, plus dynamic linking to journal articles and abstract databases, making navigation flexible and easy. For more information, pricing options and availability visit www.info.sciencedirect.com. The first Encyclopedia to exploit the multimedia potential of linguistics Ground-breaking in scope - wider than any predecessor An invaluable resource for researchers, academics, students and professionals in the fields of: linguistics, anthropology, education, psychology, language acquisition, language pathology, cognitive science, sociology, the law, the media, medicine & computer science. The most authoritative, up-to-date, comprehensive, and international reference source in its field




Linguistic Mitigation in English and Spanish


Book Description

This volume offers a comprehensive examination of mitigation in speech in English and Spanish, exploring how it is defined and theorized and the various linguistic features employed to soften or downgrade the impact of a particular message across a range of settings. Building on the body of work done on mitigation in English, the book begins by discussing how it has been conceptualized in the literature, drawing on politeness theory among other perspectives from pragmatics, and highlighting increasing research on these topics in native and bilingual Spanish speakers and learners of Spanish. The volume explores examples from a variety of discursive contexts, including institutions, courts, and classrooms, to unpack mitigation as it occurs in spontaneous speech through different lenses, looking both at the actual units of discourse but also taking a broader view by examining differences across dialects as well. The book also looks at the ways in which conclusions drawn from this research might be applied pedagogically in language learning classrooms. This volume will serve as a jumping-off point for broader discussion in the field of mitigation and will be of particular interest to graduate students and researchers in pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and discourse analysis, in addition to learners and pre-service teachers of Spanish.