The language of Akan herbal drug sellers and advertisers

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 360-386
Author(s):  
Kofi Agyekum
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Game Model ◽  
Herbal Drug ◽  
Dialogic Interaction ◽  
Pragmatic Strategies ◽  
Drug Sellers

Abstract This paper addresses the language and pragmatic strategies used by Akan herbal drug sellers to persuade would-be-buyers. It adopts the theoretical framework of Weigand’s Mixed Game Model (MGM) and defines persuasion as a variable of competence-in-performance, and language use as the basis of dialogic interaction. It investigates how sellers employ politeness, honorifics, humour, digression, personification, proverbs, metaphors and hyperbole in dialogic action games. The herbal drug sellers are grouped into three: (a) those normally plying on Ghana’s major roads and at bus stations, (b) those who are on radio and TV and (c) those who advertise on radio and TV. We will discuss excerpts of five recordings in the Akan language and translated into English.

“It’s like herding butterflies”

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-80
Author(s):  
Joanna Marhula
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Rhetorical Figures ◽  
Complementary Role ◽  
Global Discourse ◽  
Academic Lectures ◽  
Real Language ◽  
Discourse Functions ◽  
Dialogic Interaction ◽  
Communicative Discourse

Abstract This study focuses on simile in real language use. More specifically, it examines the explanatory power of similes in dialogic interaction where speakers are trying to bring their intimate experiences closer to others. The material under analysis comes from BBC Radio 4 “Woman’s Hour” programmes and is characterized by a relatively high simile frequency compared with other spoken genres, for example, academic lectures (Low, 2010). In view of this fact, the study aims to explore the discourse functions of similes in radio talk: are they one-off rhetorical figures which cater for local discourse needs only, or do they also form extensive explanations with more global discourse functions? Apart from examining how simile-type comparisons are employed in radio conversations, the study also explores the interplay between similes and metaphors as well as their complementary role in realizing communicative discourse goals.

scholarly journals A Positivist Study of Conversational Pragmatic Strategies

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 166
Author(s):  
Senlin Liu
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Face Management ◽  
The Face ◽  
Pragmatic Strategies

<p>Language use is always strategic. Speakers do not only choose linguistic forms, they also choose strategies. This paper intends to explore the ways the language users take to attain their communicate goals, i.e., pragmatic strategies. Specifically, this article aims at a comprehensive positivist of the conversational pragmatic strategies in part of the novel <em>Man, Woman and Child</em> by Erich Segal; the direct-indirect pragmatic strategies in the eighty-nine Coca-Cola consumer advertisements from the year 1886 up to the year 1980; the “conversational maxim” pragmatic strategies in some 793 business letters, the “conversational maxim” pragmatic strategies in seven e-mails; and the “face-management” pragmatic strategies in some 793 business letters. The goal of study is to verify the universality and feasibility of the implementation of pragmatic strategies, both in literary and business writings. Only in this way can the language users achieve their communicative goal effectively.</p>

On the goals, principles, and procedures for prescriptive grammar: Singular they

1980 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald G. Mackay
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Relative Frequency ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
General Interest ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Theoretical Linguistics ◽  
Normal Language ◽  
Prescriptive Grammar

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the goals of prescriptive grammar and the causes and consequences of the rift between prescriptive and theoretical linguistics. It also proposes a principle for guiding prescriptive recommendations in the future as well as a theoretical framework and procedure for predicting the consequences of prescriptive recommendations. The procedure illustrates a hypothetical prescription: the substitution of singular they for prescriptive he. Projected benefits the prescription include neutral connotation, naturalness, simplicity, and lexical availability. Projected costs include covert and overt referential ambiguity; partial ambiguity; conceptual inaccuracy; loss of precision, imageability, impact, and memorability; bizarreness involving certain referents and case forms; distancing and dehumanizing connotations; unavailability of the ‘he or she’ denotation; potentially disruptive and long-lasting side effects on other areas of the language. Procedures are also illustrated for determining the relative frequency of such costs and benefits and for estimating the relative disruptiveness of the costs normal language use. Implications of the data for several issues general interest to linguistics and psychology are explored. (Ambiguity, language change, prescriptive grammar, theoretical linguistics, language planning, pronouns, neologisms.)

scholarly journals The Discourse Analysis of E-Business Instant Communication from the Perspective of Politeness Principle

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 174
Author(s):  
Tingting Guo ◽  
Zhenxia Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Linguistic Resources ◽  
Special Occasion ◽  
Instant Communication ◽  
Reasonable Use

With the popularity and frequency of e-business activities, e-business instant communication plays an increasingly important role in e-business, and the appropriate and reasonable use of business language usually directly influences the economic interests. Therefore, the present study takes politeness principle as the theoretical framework and the participants&rsquo; chat records of e-business instant communication as the research data, and adopts the methodologies of discourse analysis and interview to explore the language use in e-business activities from the perspective of politeness principle. And the present study finds that servicers and customers use different linguistic resources from the perspective of politeness principle out of different interest pursuit. More specifically, servicers strictly observe the six maxims having no violations in e-business instant communication, while customers go against Tact Maxim, Generosity Maxim, Approbation Maxim and Modesty Maxim and usually comply with Agreement Maxim and Sympathy Maxim, nevertheless, they violate Agreement Maxim and Sympathy Maxim on special occasion in e-business instant communication. What&rsquo;s more, if customers can strictly observe Agreement Maxim and Sympathy Maxim, and servicers can study how to avoid and deal with customers&rsquo; violation to Agreement Maxim and Sympathy Maxim successfully, enterprises, servicers and customers will benefit.

Dilemmatic aspects of language policies in a trilingual preschool group

Multilingua ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tünde Puskás ◽  
Polly Björk-Willén
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Choice ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Free Play ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Preschool Curriculum ◽  
Societal Level ◽  
Micro Level

AbstractThis article explores dilemmatic aspects of language policies in a preschool group in which three languages (Swedish, Romani and Arabic) are spoken on an everyday basis. The article highlights the interplay between policy decisions on the societal level, the teachers’ interpretations of these policies, as well as language practices on the micro level. The preschool group is seen as a complex context for negotiating language policies and expectations regarding language use. The theoretical framework builds on Billig’s work on ideological and everyday dilemmas that we argue are detectable at both levels of the analysis. The analysis of the ethnographic material shows that the explicit language policy formulated in the Swedish preschool curriculum leads, in practice, to ideological, pedagogical and everyday dilemmas. Moreover, an unwillingness to set rules for children’s language choice combined with the central position of free play in Swedish preschool practice has led to a situation in which children fall short of their potential to develop bilingual competence.

Critical autoethnographic narrative: Ideological contention, metacommentary and aesthetic labor in language education

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Fallas-Escobar
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Linguistic Resources ◽  
Aesthetic Labor ◽  
Learning Language

AbstractBased on the premise that human experience is storied, the researcher engaged in the writing of critical autoethnographic narratives to examine ideological contention in language learning, language use, and language teaching. Using raciolinguistic ideologies as theoretical framework, he shows the ways ideological orientations embedded in circulating metacommentary push individuals to engage in aesthetic labor around the ways they employ their linguistic resources. Findings suggest that language educators and learners should engage in critical examination of seemingly innocent metalinguistic commentary, as these contain contradictory and multiple ideological orientations that largely shape the perception and employment of speakers’ linguistic repertoires.

scholarly journals A Stylo- Pragmatic Appraisal of Lawal's Communicative Model Theory

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Acheoah John Emike ◽  
Margaret Nonyerem Agu
Keyword(s):  
Model Theory ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Contextual Factors ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Functional Explanations

This paper is essentially an appraisal of Lawal’s Communicative Model Theory within the purview of stylistics and pragmatics. Any investigation of the stylistic and pragmatic factors that motivate language use is inevitably immersed in language users’ supremacy over the normative properties of language. One of the factors that promoted scholarly interest in pragmatics is the possibility that significant functional explanations can be given for linguistic facts. Like any study in pragmatics, research in stylistics investigates contextual factors that inform language use; in this regard, the meaning of an utterance – not its grammaticalness – is the major concern. This paper hinges on The Pragma-crafting Theory as a theoretical framework and concludes that although the Communicative Model Theory is bedeviled by its inability to explain certain dimensions of language use, it captures the contextual underpinnings of language use.

The persuasive use of pronouns in action games of election campaigns

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Răzvan Săftoiu ◽  
Adrian Toader
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Presidential Campaign ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Game Model ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Political Group ◽  
Power Of Words

Abstract Action games of election campaigns are one of the best venues for politicians to team up with specialists in communication studies in order to build, review, construct or deconstruct their own or their opponent’s image with the purpose of persuading the electorate to vote for a certain political group. Various action games of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign are analysed with regard to different dialogic means used by the speaker in order to persuade the audience to vote for him. For instance, he evokes nationalistic views in his speeches and skilfully uses pronouns in order to establish his role as dominant, strong, and credible nominee for presidency. Since we focus on a particular practice in dialogic language use, we will show that the Mixed Game Model (MGM) is more appropriate to study the argumentative power of words than integrationism.

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