Face Management and Negative Strengthening: The Role of Power Relations, Social Distance, and Gender

Negated gradable adjectives often convey an interpretation that is stronger than their literal meaning, which is referred to as ‘negative strengthening.’ For example, a sentence like ‘John is not kind’ may give rise to the inference that John is rather mean. Crucially, negation is more likely to be pragmatically strengthened in the case of positive adjectives (‘not kind’ to mean rather mean) than negative adjectives (‘not mean’ to mean rather kind). A classical explanation of this polarity asymmetry is based on politeness, specifically on the potential face threat of bare negative adjectives (Horn, 1989; Brown and Levinson, 1987). This paper presents the results of two experiments investigating the role of face management in negative strengthening. We show that negative strengthening of positive and negative adjectives interacts differently with the social variables of power, social distance, and gender.

Differential innovation in 2nd person pronouns and agreement indexation in Trans-Himalayan languages

Tibeto-Burman languages show a drastic difference in the stability of independent and bound 2nd person forms. The 2nd person pronoun *naŋ is the most stable form in the Proto-Trans-Himalayan paradigm, preserved in almost every low-level clade, while 1st person is sometimes replaced. But 2nd person indexation in the verb is highly unstable. There were two distinct forms already in PTH, a suffix #-na, belonging to the original paradigm, and an innovative prefix #tV-, as well as an irrealis form which could be used with 2nd person reference. In daughter languages across the family we find further innovations in this category. These facts pose two questions. The first – why is 2nd person indexation so unstable? – can be interpreted in terms of politeness and face management. But this raises another question – if 2nd person indexation is inherently unstable, why is 2nd person independent pronominal reference not? The difference in stability reflects a difference in function. In Tibeto-Burman languages, with or without argument indexation, independent pronouns are always ‘optional’, i.e. carry some information management function such as contrast. Thus when pronominal reference to the addressee might be awkward, it can always be avoided, so there is no need to innovate face-saving substitutes for it. In contrast, in languages with argument indexation, the verbal index is obligatory, so any desire to avoid direct reference to one’s interlocutor requires adopting an alternative construction which then, over time, may grammaticalize into a new 2nd person index.

Simulation Model for Optimal Operation of Dokan Dam Reservoir Northern of Iraq

Due to the limitation of water renewable resources on one hand and increasing growth in consuming water in different parts such as agriculture, industry, urban, and the environment in other hand, face management of these valuable resources to many challenges. Present study attempts to clarify recent condition of the problem and introduce effective management tools in water supply sector. In order to achieve this purpose, simulating model HEC-Res Sim was used for Dokan Dam to study the operational behavior of the reservoir and to investigate the model capability in representing and simulating the real system. The study based on monthly discharge data for the period from 1986 to 2016 measured at the inlet of Dokan Dam reservoir. The results of the current study were compared and evaluated against those counterparts observed data using two statistical metrics, correlation coefficient and Nash- Sutcliff coefficient efficiency. Moreover, an empirical formula was found linking the amount of inflow to the reservoir with the amount of outflow. The results showed that the HEC-ResSim 3.0 performed well in simulating the monthly discharges. Therefore, HEC-ResSim 3.0 could be used for better water system analysis in this study area.

A Sociopragmatic Study of Intra-Gender Compliment Responses by Saudi College Students

This study examines compliment responses in Hejazi Arabic as used by Saudi college students. It focuses on the types of compliment responses used, the relationship of the speaker’s gender with his/her compliment behavior, and the sociocultural values attached to this behavior. Examples of compliment responses were elicited from King Abdulaziz University students using a number of compliment formulas that are generally considered to be very common in Hejazi Arabic. The compliment responses were analyzed in terms of their semantic, pragmatic, and sociolinguistic characteristics, based on Leech’s (1983) politeness maxims and the face-management approach of Brown and Levinson (1987). The analysis shows that the speakers, especially women, accept the compliment paid to them in the majority of the compliment responses collected, which can be accounted for by Leech’s Approbation, Tact and Agreement Maxims in which the interlocutors emphasize their closeness with each other. In accordance with face-politeness, the dominance of the acceptance compliment responses makes them as positive politeness strategies in which the compliment recipient negotiates or offers solidarity with the complimenter. In examining the concepts of complimenting in culture-specific contexts, this research provides further data to understand, illustrate and test the abovementioned politeness models. It also contributes to sociolinguistic theory by examining variation in the use of compliment responses in same-sex interactions. Keywords: compliments; compliment responses; gender; Hejazi Arabic; politeness maxims, positive politeness

Face management and negative strengthening: The role of power relations, social distance and gender

Negated gradable adjectives often convey an interpretation that is stronger than their literal meaning, which is referred to as ‘negative strengthening’. For example, a sentence like ‘John is not kind’ may give rise to the inference that John is rather mean. Crucially, negation is more likely to be pragmatically strengthened in the case of positive adjectives (‘not kind’ to mean rather mean) than negative adjectives (‘not mean’ to mean rather kind). A classical explanation of this polarity asymmetry is based on politeness, specifically on the potential face threat of bare negative adjectives (Horn, 1989, Brown & Levinson, 1987). This paper presents the results of two experiments investigating the role of face management in negative strengthening. We show that negative strengthening of positive and negative adjectives interacts differently with the social variables of power, social distance, and gender.

Face Management and Issues of Power, Solidarity, and Distance: Socio-Pragmatic Influences on Literary Discourses

<p><em>Literature, in many ways, reflects human societies. Literature is mainly a linguistic and aesthetic reflection of how human beings conduct their personal and social lives. The use of language by nature is a social activity. Human beings conduct all aspects of their lives through language. In the backdrop of this premise, human communication is, by nature, social communication. Furthermore, language is shaped by societies and, in turn, societies are also shaped by the language they shape. The human communication functions and works on the social aspects related to who speaks to whom, when, in what language, where, how, and for what purpose. In all contexts, the sociolinguistic aspects of power principle, solidarity principle, distance, and face management play an influential role in determining the tenor, tone and mode of communication. This paper attempts to examine, analyze and discuss the socio-pragmatic perspectives that shape, guide, and give direction to inter-personal human communication. This analytical discussion of the socio-pragmatic aspects of language use will be carried out through sociolinguistic analyses of dialogic discourses from the magnum opus A Suitable Boy (ASB) authored by Vikram Seth, which is considered to be an authentic socio-cultural document of India. </em></p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> <em>face management, power principle, socio-pragmatic influences, solidarity principle</em></p><p> </p>