This investigation explores pragmatic competence of Polish L2 English speakers in offensive situations. The learning of politeness in a second language requires a process of ‘re-framing’, meaning...Show moreThis investigation explores pragmatic competence of Polish L2 English speakers in offensive situations. The learning of politeness in a second language requires a process of ‘re-framing’, meaning enriching already existing patterns of behaviour in a given context in the native language to schemas appropriate in the target language (Brown, 2010). Acquiring pragmatic competence in a second language is a difficult process especially if the culture of the target language is different from the native one. Polish L2 speakers of English are likely to transfer the pragmatic knowledge of their L1 to L2 they acquire and thus might use different politeness strategies in apologies from native users of English, especially since Polish and Anglo-Saxon culture have been classified as positive politeness and negative politeness culture respectively (Lubecka, 2000). With the use of Ogiermann’s (2009) method based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) Politeness Theory, the study reveals that Polish L2 English speakers, in general, seem to use similar apology strategies as English native speakers hence employ negative politeness strategies. Nonetheless, to some extent, they show the tendency to employ positive politeness apology strategies which pose threat to the speaker’s negative face and enhance the speaker’s and hearer’s positive face needs. The findings suggest that some cultural aspects are particularly difficult to overcome and therefore teaching pragmatics to second language learners should be improved.Show less
Verbal irony has been a topic of study for several decades and conclusive answers to what it is and how language users correctly understand each other’s ironic expressions are difficult to provide....Show moreVerbal irony has been a topic of study for several decades and conclusive answers to what it is and how language users correctly understand each other’s ironic expressions are difficult to provide. Saying the opposite of what you actually mean does not seem the most effective way of communicating at first sight, but it has proven to be used over and over again without much misunderstanding. Several theories have been proposed in the past few decades that try to explain the concept of verbal irony (among others Grice 1975; Wilson & Sperber 1992; Giora 1997; Tobin & Israel 2012). Most theories on verbal irony share the idea that irony is best defined as an utterance with a literal evaluation that is implicitly opposite to its intended evaluation (Burgers & Van Mulken 2013: 184). According to Giora and others (see for example Giora, Drucker & Fein 2014), constructions (form-meaning pairs) can even be interpreted ironically by default, when the interpretation that springs to mind first is the ironic interpretation, whether presented in isolation or in a context biasing towards that ironic interpretation. This claim is based solely on experimental research with constructed examples (among others Giora et al. 2015; Giora, Givoni & Fein 2015; Giora et al. 2018). However, to support the claim of default ironic interpretation actual language data should be involved, but such corpus studies on ironic constructions are rare. This study builds on two previous studies investigating Dutch ironic constructions on Twitter (Walles 2016; Stevens 2018), and it extends the scope to ironic constructions in English. By comparing three corpora each containing 2,000 tweets with one of the three hashtags #irony, #not, and #sarcasm with a corpus containing 15,000 general English tweets, 30 words and 22 phrases appeared to occur significantly more often in the ironic tweets. These words and phrases were used to compile a new corpus, containing one hundred tweets for each word or phrase. An analysis of the tweets showed that only four were used ironically significantly more often, namely 'classy', 'I’m shocked', 'what a surprise', and 'yeah right'. Exploring the ironic meaning of these four constructions from a constructionist point of view is fruitful, since their ironic meaning can be better understood as these constructions are considered as one unit to which the ironic meaning is assigned. These constructions underwent subjectification: its ironic evaluation has become part of the conventional meaning of the construction and the usage of the construction is expanded to a wider range of communicative contexts in which it conveys an ironic attitude (Verhagen 2000). This gradual conventionalization of the ironic evaluation explains why certain constructions are used more frequently with an ironic intent than others: those constructions have progressed further in the conventionalization process and the ironic meaning has become more closely attached to the construction (Claridge 2011). Nevertheless, the four ironic constructions in the Twitter corpus could not be classified as default ironic constructions, as there are still cases in which they are used literally. The notion of default ironic interpretation is problematic, as the analysis of actual language data do not support the view that one particular construction is always and only used ironically.Show less
Pragmatic processing has always been an interesting topic which could shed light on perhaps one of the most intriguing phenomena of human beings, that of communication. In my thesis, pragmatic...Show morePragmatic processing has always been an interesting topic which could shed light on perhaps one of the most intriguing phenomena of human beings, that of communication. In my thesis, pragmatic processing will be examined through an ‘outsider’ lens, that of ‘shared intentionality’. The notion of ‘shared intentionality’ (or collective intentionality) has been developed and studied within the realm of philosophy of action (Chant et. al, 2014: 1). A joint act between two or more agents is upheld by an infrastructure of ‘shared intentionality’, which imposes mutual commitment, support, and obligation from all agents in pursuit of a common goal. Communication, viewed as a joint act (Clark, 1996), might surely be examined through the lens of ‘shared intentionality’. The central idea focuses on how ‘shared intentionality’, subserving as the psychological infrastructure, accounts for pragmatic processing in communicative acts. Within the course of pragmatic processing, I would propose and argue that shared intentionality works side by side with the main pragmatic theories in helping both interlocutors reach the ultimate shared goal of the joint communicative act: that of the hearer arriving at the intended meaning by the speaker.Show less
In this thesis I explore the notion of Linguistic Manipulation (i.e. manipulation through the use of language) by using Austin & Searle’s Speech Act Theory, Grice’s Cooperative Principle, Brown...Show moreIn this thesis I explore the notion of Linguistic Manipulation (i.e. manipulation through the use of language) by using Austin & Searle’s Speech Act Theory, Grice’s Cooperative Principle, Brown & Levinson’s Politeness Theory and Lakoff & Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory in an attempt to create a framework of linguistic manipulative acts. This involves looking at the concept of Linguistic Manipulation as a two-layered concept involving an internal and external requirement that works together for an optimal chance of success of the manipulative act. The framework presented offers three different strategies of presenting a perlocutionary act that differ in estimated risk assessment for the speaker.Show less
Second language learning is difficult when social context is involved, especially if the culture of the target language is inherently different from the native one. A full command of a second...Show moreSecond language learning is difficult when social context is involved, especially if the culture of the target language is inherently different from the native one. A full command of a second language involves a linguistic and ideological ‘reframing’ process. At this stage, pragmatic competence is crucial to interlanguage learners. The realization of speech acts, such as implementing politeness strategies, requires a high command of not only linguistic but also social knowledge. This research investigated Chinese English learners’ command of making polite requests with regard to applying different politeness strategies by conducting tests amongst Chinese high school and university students. After analysing the results, some problems are displayed and explanations are ventured.Show less
In deze scriptie is er onderzoek gedaan naar beleefdheid in reclames. Het was een cross-linguistisch onderzoek tussen het Engels en het Nederlands. Hieruit bleek dat, hoewel de verschillen klein...Show moreIn deze scriptie is er onderzoek gedaan naar beleefdheid in reclames. Het was een cross-linguistisch onderzoek tussen het Engels en het Nederlands. Hieruit bleek dat, hoewel de verschillen klein zijn, er merkbaar een duidelijkere keuze was voor beleefdheid in de zin van Brown en Levinson bij de Engelsen dan bij de Nederlanders.Show less
Im niederländischen Fremdsprachenunterricht stellt sich immer wieder heraus, dass die Modalverben für Schwierigkeiten während der Deutschstunde sorgen. Es handelt sich dabei nicht nur um...Show moreIm niederländischen Fremdsprachenunterricht stellt sich immer wieder heraus, dass die Modalverben für Schwierigkeiten während der Deutschstunde sorgen. Es handelt sich dabei nicht nur um Sprachschwierigkeiten, sondern auch um Verständigungsprobleme. Im Mittelpunkt dieser Arbeit stehen die Modalverben müssen und sollen und ihr niederländisches Äquivalent moeten, da sie im DaF-Unterricht für die größten Schwierigkeiten sorgen. Diese Untersuchung hat einerseits zum Ziel eine kontrastive Analyse der deutschen und niederländischen Modalverben müssen, sollen und moeten darzustellen. Andererseits werden die sprachlichen Probleme niederländischer Schüler beim Erlernen und beim Gebrauch dieser deutschen Modalverben gezeigt. Das Ergebnis dieser Arbeit ist eine didaktische Konzeption für die erfolgreiche Vermittlung der Modalverben im niederländische DaF-Unterricht.Show less
