Hedges in Students’ Reflective Feedback: Evidence from an Online Class during COVID-19 Outbreak

Scholars have observed hedges in academic writing, yet the examination of hedges in students’ reflective feedback is scarcely found. During the Covid-19 pandemic, both teachers and students face difficulty engaging themselves in online classes. To figure out how students show their attitude, among others, is through reflective feedback. One of the language features pivotal in reflective feedback is ‘hedge’, a pragmatic feature representing a speaker’s tentativeness and possibility in communication (Lakoff, 1973). This paper addresses two questions: (1) what types of hedges are used in the students’ reflective feedback in online class during the covid-19 outbreak? and (2) what are the functions of the hedges? This paper took 151 samples of students’ reflective feedback in the introduction to English linguistics class at Sanata Dharma University to answer those problems. Findings reveal that the students dominantly used modal auxiliaries and epistemic adverbs as the types of hedges as a politeness technique to convey their anxiety and hesitation during an online class.Keywords: hedges, reflective feedback, online class

“PRAGMATIC INTERPRETATION OF WORD-SENTENCES IN UZBEK LANGUAGE”

This article is devoted to the pragmatic features of word-sentences, separated as special parts of speech in Uzbek language. The pragmatic feature of word-sentences is higher than other units of language in speech statement. Though word-sentences don’t have a content of proposition, they completely express communicative intention and content from illocutionary aspect. Studying the word-sentences in Uzbek language from pragmatic aspect discovers peculiarities of usage in speech system units. In Uzbek linguistics word-sentences were studied as interjections, descriptives, and vocative sentences by E.Shodmonov, S.Usmonov, R.Kongurov, S.Saidov, B.Orinboyev, O.Lafasov; R.Bobokalonov studied them under the concept of semantic-functional formed word-sentences. This system is divided into 4 groups: 1) modal verbs; 2) interjections; 3) positive/negative words; 4) offer-indicational words. In this article several methods such as descriptional, differential-semantic, discursive and component analysesare used.

Perception of Russia’s image in China in the context of “One Belt and One Road”

We prove that the positive perception of Russia’s image in China is strengthened in the context of the creation of global transport and investment infrastructure “One Belt and One Road”, which expands the China-Russian relations, strengthens a propitious atmosphere for the economic development of two countries. We propose an attempt to study the reasons for the spread and strengthening in modern China of a positive image of “Russia” with a rich educational image, nat-ural resources and cultural traditions, which for many years was perceived by the Chinese as a country of balalaikas, bears and vodka. We substantiate that the Russia’s image in China is built on the basis of acquaintance with the traditions of national culture and everyday culture. We note that a special role in understanding the image of the country is played by the cultural and linguistic stereotype, which is formed on the basis of the proper name, which contains an evaluative and associative component. We emphasize that the phenomenon of the anthroponym allows us to identify its pragmatic feature, which helps to clarify the subjective perception of a certain person by a native Chinese speaker, and the cultural properties of the proper name.

The Function of ’aṮmāhā in Genesis Rabbah

The meaning and use of the Jewish Palestinian Aramaic word (‘astonishment‘) have been discussed only briefly in scholarly literature. The present article examines its use and seeks to demonstrate that most of its occurrences mark two specific types of questions: (1) rhetorical questions and (2) conducive questions. In these functions it is similar to the Zawgā ‘elāyā in New Testament Peshitta manuscripts. We conclude that was not intended to be pronounced, nor did it function as a standard punctuation mark, but rather was a marker for a specific pragmatic feature, i.e. questions that are not requests for information. Additionally, it may have developed a secondary asseverative usage.

Pragmatic Features In The Utterances Of Male And Female Of Siladangnese

The objective of this study is to describe the pragmatic features of tag question and hedge in the utterances of male and female of Siladangnese. The research was designed with qualitative descriptive method. The data were obtained by implementing participant observation and interview. The finding shows that there are two types of pragmatics features of tag question in the utterances of male and female of Siladangnese. Five pragmatic features of hedge in the utterances of male and female of Siladangnese found; a) hedge as a means of protection, b) hedge as a means of certainty, c) hedge as a means of uncertainty, d) hedge as a means of politeness, and e) hedge as a means of limitation. Male Siladangnese tend to utter modal tag as a sign of uncertainty while female Siladangnese tend to utter affective tag as a sign of politeness. One of the pragmatic features of hedge in the utterances of female Siladangnese is a means of politeness, but it was not found in the utterances of male Siladangnese. The total number of tag question and hedge in the utterances of male and female of Siladangnese is different but it did not show a significant differences. Keywords: Pragmatic feature; tag question; hedge; gender.

IN DEFENSE OF SUBJECT-SENSITIVE INVARIANTISM

ABSTRACTKeith DeRose has argued that the two main problems facing subject-sensitive invariantism (SSI) come from the appropriateness of certain third-person denials of knowledge and the inappropriateness of now you know it, now you don't claims. I argue that proponents of SSI can adequately address both problems. First, I argue that the debate between contextualism and SSI has failed to account for an important pragmatic feature of third-person denials of knowledge. Appealing to these pragmatic features, I show that straightforward third-person denials are inappropriate in the relevant cases. And while there are certain denials that are appropriate, they pose no problems for SSI. Next, I offer an explanation, compatible with SSI, of the oddity of now you know it, now you don't claims. To conclude, I discuss the intuitiveness of purism, whose rejection is the source of many problems for SSI. I propose to explain away the intuitiveness of purism as a side-effect of the narrow focus of previous epistemological inquiries.

Subject and object omission in children's early transitive constructions: A discourse-pragmatic approach

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates discourse effects on the provision of both subjects and objects and investigates whether pragmatic discourse features govern the realization/omission of both constituents alike. In an elicitation study, we examined how the discourse-pragmatic feature contrast, as applied to the subject, verb, or object of a transitive utterance affected the provision of elements in the remainder of the sentence when all elements were previously introduced. The results showed that 3.5-year-old children were more likely to realize a contrasted argument with a lexical noun but more likely to omit the argument when it was not part of a contrast, regardless of its subject or object status. This suggests that contrast presents a unifying discourse feature for argument omission in language development.

Negative Concord in English

This paper argues that Negative Concord is generated by the grammars of all English varieties, but just not “realized” in the standardized variety, in the sense of Barbiers (2005, 2009). I show that Double Negation constructions, wherein two negative elements yield a doubly negated meaning, are formed identically by English varieties that realize Negative Concord and those that do not. Unlike previous Minimalist Agree approaches to English Negative Concord, this proposal accounts for the fact that English varieties generate both Double Negation and Negative Concord constructions. This paper employs Tortora’s (2009, in press) mechanism of feature spreading, and López’s (2009) derivational assignment of the pragmatic feature [contrast], to successfully capture the facts of Negative Concord and Double Negation in English. In so doing, it contributes insight into the representation of sentential negation, and supports the Barbiersian notion that not all grammatical structures are realized in a given variety.

Teaching refusal strategies in the foreign language classroom: a focus on inductive-deductive treatments

The present paper attempts to present a pedagogical model for the integration of pragmatic competence in the foreign language classroom by following an inductive-deductive approach. For the sake of the current article, the pragmatic feature that has been chosen is the speech act of refusals. The rationale behind this selection is based on the fact that refusals are seen as a face-threatening act which may confront listeners’ expectations (Eslami 2010: 217). Hence, learners should obtain a particular pragmatic expertise to outperform refusals successfully and that is the reason why the teaching of this speech act should be integrated in foreign language settings.