Osamu Sawada, 2018. Pragmatic aspects of scalar modifiers: The semantics-pragmatics interface

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 654-656
Author(s):  
Jacob L. Mey
Author(s):  
Osamu Sawada

This book investigates pragmatic aspects of scalar modifiers. Through a detailed analysis of the semantics and pragmatics of comparatives with indeterminate pronouns, positive polarity minimizers, intensifiers, and expectation-reversal adverbs in Japanese and other languages, the book shows that scalarity is utilized not just for measuring a thing/event in the semantic level, but also for expressing various kinds of pragmatic information, including politeness, priority of utterance, the speaker’s attitude, and unexpectedness, at the level of conventional implicature (CI). The similarities and differences between at-issue and CI scalar meanings are analyzed using a multidimensional composition system (Potts 2005; McCready 2010). Two types of pragmatic scalar modifiers are proposed: a higher-level pragmatic scalar modifier, which utilizes an implicit pragmatic scale, and a lower-level pragmatic scalar modifier, which recycles the scale of an at-issue gradable predicate. The book also investigates the interpretations of pragmatic scalar modifiers that are embedded in the complement of an attitude predicate, and claims that there is a semantic shift from a CI to a secondary at-issue entailment in the case of non-speaker-oriented readings. It will also show that there is a phenomenon of “projection of not-at-issue meaning via modal support” in lower-level pragmatic scalar modifiers. Finally, the historical development of pragmatic scalar modifiers is also discussed. This book claims that although semantic scalar meanings and pragmatic (CI) scalar meanings are compositionally different, there is a relationship between the two, and it is important to look at both kinds of meaning in a uniform/flexible fashion.


2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-272
Author(s):  
Jürgen Streeck

This paper describes speaking practices enacted by young female in-patients during psychotherapy sessions. The patients are in treatment for anxiety and panic disorders (social phobias). The practices involve prosodic, lexical, and pragmatic aspects of utterance construction. An effect that they share is that the speaker’s embodied presence in her talk and her epistemic commitment to it are reduced as the utterance progresses. The practices are interpreted in light of Bateson’s interactional theory of character formation: as elements of a self-sustaining system Angst (anxiety). The study has grown out of an interdisciplinary effort to explore possible relationships between types of anxiety and the communicative and linguistic patterns by which patients describe panic attacks and other highly emotional experiences.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Arkadiusz Urbanek

The aspiration to keep the synergy in relations between majorities and minorities repeatedly emerges as the cause of conflicts in social relations. It is also a subject of the interest of the multicultural education, particularly in countries of Eastern Europe, building contacts with the culturally and ethnically diverse groups to a wider scale. Relations in culturally, religiously and ethnic diverse societies, are becoming more and more related to the personal attitudes and a given policy. These issues acquire in the prison circumstances even greater significance, as given moods and personal attitudes of the prison staff create the pragmatic aspects of the professional activities addressed to the sentenced. Additionally, the key role is played by the quality of the penitentiary policy and the legal culture. The article presents the comparative analysis of the research carried out in 2016 amongst the prison staff in Poland. The subject of the research concerned attitudes that influence the decisive processes. The personal relations have been analyzed in the context of the relation with the sentenced Muslims. The aim of the research was not only to reveal the quality of the decisions concerning the sentenced Muslims, but also the sources of such decisions. The latter, in consequence, may shift, as the research results prove, towards synergy or discrimination. The diversification of the discrimination was one of the intriguing aspects, disclosed at various levels that not always explicitly concerned the discrimination of the minority.


Widyaparwa ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-164
Author(s):  
Novita Sumarlin Putri

Tindak tutur komisif merupakan salah satu aspek pragmatik yang harus diperhatikan oleh penerjemah ketika menerjemahkan teks. Hal itu dilakukan agar menghasilkan terjemahan yang berkualitas dari aspek keakuratan dan keberterimaan. Berdasarkan alasan tersebut, penelitian ini bertujuan mendiskripsikan tingkat keakuratan dan keberterimaan terjemahan kalimat yang mengakomodasi tindak tutur komisif dengan pendekatan pragmatik. Data yang digunakan ialah tuturan komisif dan hasil penilaian kualitas terjemahan. Data bersumber dari novel Insurgent karya Veronica Roth dan informan. Data dikumpulkan dengan cara analisis dokumen, kuesioner dan Focus Group Discussion. Selanjutnya, data dianalisis dengan cara analisis domain, taksonomi, komponensial, dan tema budaya. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa terjemahan dalam novel Insurgent mempunyai nilai keakuratan dan keberterimaan yang cukup tinggi. Berdasarkan penelitian ini, dapat disimpulkan bahwa tingkat keakuratan dan keberterimaan pada setiap jenis tindak tutur komisif memiliki dampak terhadap kualitas keseluruhan terjemahan kalimat yang mengandung tindak tutur komisif.Commissive speech act is one of the pragmatic aspects to regard by the translator in translating the text. It aims to produce a qualified translation in regarding accuracy and acceptability aspects. According to the aspects, this research aims to describe accuracy and acceptability of translation in sentences which accommodate commissive speech act using pragmatic approach. The data used is commissive speech and qualitative translation value result. The sources of the data are an Insurgent novel by Veronica Roth and informants. The data were collected through document analysis, questionnaire, and Focus Group Discussion then analyzed the domain, taxonomic, componential analysis, and cultural theme. The result shows that translation in the Insurgent novel has high accuracy and acceptability values. This research concludes that the accuracy and acceptability level in each commissive speech act has an impact on quality of whole translated sentences which contain commissive speech act.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrey Panteleev ◽  
Anastasija Inos

This monograph deals with the problem of functioning peculiarities of graphic expressive means and grammar means in the language of modern Russian advertising. This research work treats the advertising discourse as a composite indirect speech act. Active use of adverbial modifiers of manner — deverbatives, elliptical and indefinite personal one-member sentences is characteristic of modern advertising texts. A most distinguishing feature of a modern advertising text is a mixture of Cyrillic and Latin fonts that contributes to the manifestation of an expressive potential of the application. The monograph is aimed at students of Philology, students major in Management and Marketing, masters, postgraduates, staff of higher educational establishments and all those who are interested in the Russian language.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-177
Author(s):  
Michael B. Dilling ◽  
Anne C. DiSante ◽  
Ross Durland ◽  
Christine E. Flynn ◽  
Leonid Metelitsa ◽  
...  

Collaborations between academia and industry are growing in scope, duration, and sophistication. The best collaborations recognize the unique strengths and skill sets of both parties and are structured to leverage what each party does best. In many cases, these collaborations develop into long-term relationships, and it is important to develop the systems and structures needed to support these relationships to ensure that they meet the needs of both sides. Successful collaborations require the formulation of a governance structure to facilitate communication, decision-making, assessment of progress, and the inevitable changes of direction that accompany product development. This panel explored the pragmatic aspects of successfully structuring collaborations and managing the relationships after the deal is done. Several dominant themes associated with successful collaborative relationships emerged from the discussion, and these will be explored in this article.


Author(s):  
Osamu Sawada

Chapter 8 investigates the interpretation of embedded pragmatic scalar modifiers and considers the semantic mechanism behind subject- and speaker-oriented interpretations of embedded pragmatic scalar modifiers and CIs. For a subject-oriented reading, it is argued that there is a shift from a CI to a secondary at-issue entailment at the clausal level when the embedded clause combines with an attitude predicate and has a subject-oriented reading. For a speaker-oriented reading of embedded pragmatic scalar modifiers, it is claimed that the lower-level pragmatic scalar modifiers have the distinctive property of projection: unlike higher-level pragmatic scalar modifiers/typical CIs, lower-level pragmatic scalar modifiers can project out of the complement of a belief predicate only if there is a speaker-oriented modal in the main clause. This chapter shows that the interpretation of embedded pragmatic scalar modifiers is not only a matter of context and involves semantic and pragmatic mechanisms.


Author(s):  
Osamu Sawada

Chapter 1 introduces the aim and the target phenomenon of this book, that is, the dual-use phenomenon of scalar modifiers and the meaning and use of pragmatic scalar modifiers. After a brief overview of the current views on the notion of conventional implicatures (CIs) and the semantics/pragmatics interface, and observation of data for the dual-use phenomenon of pragmatic scalar modifiers, this book raises questions concerning (i) the similarities and differences between at-issue scalar meanings and CI (not-at-issue) scalar meanings, (ii) variations in pragmatic scalar modifiers, (iii) the interpretations of embedded pragmatic scalar modifiers, and (iv) the historical development of pragmatic scalar modifiers. It then also briefly outlines the core ideas and analytical directions used for answering these questions.


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