Gaze selects the next speaker in answers to questions pronominally addressed to more than one co-participant

Like many other languages, but unlike modern (standard) English, German has a distinct second person plural pronoun (ihr, ‘you guys’), contrasting with the second person singular pronoun (du). The second person plural pronoun addresses a turn to more than one, and possibly all co-present participants. This paper investigates turn-taking after such multiply addressed turns, taking as an example information-seeking questions, i.e., a sequential context in which a specific next action is relevant in the adjacent position. It might appear that in such a context, self-selection applies (Schegloff 1992: 122); more than one co-participant is addressed, but none selected as next speaker. In this paper, I show on the basis of spontaneous interactions recorded with mobile eye-tracking equipment that this is not the case and that TCU-final gaze is employed to select the next speaker. The participant not being gazed at TCU-finally is addressed, but not selected as the answerer in next position and may provide an answer in a sequential position after the first answer. The article demonstrates that gaze is an efficient way to allocate turns in the absence of verbal cues and thus contributes to our understanding of turn-taking from a multimodal perspective.

WIR im interaktionalen Gebrauch: Zur Verwendung des Pronomens der 1. Person Plural in der institutionellen Kommunikation – am Beispiel onkologischer Aufklärungsgespräche

This empirically oriented article focuses on uses of the pronoun “wir” (‘we’) in medical interaction – more precisely, in oncological consultations. After a brief presentation of major research on the 1st person plural pronoun in German, I will – based on methods of Interactional Linguistics – analyze interactional uses of this deictic pronoun in institutional doctor-patient conversations. This article aims at contributing to research of how grammar is used in response to local interactional needs within social interaction (Auer/Pfänder 2011). As the data show, participants in these institutional settings make use of various types of “wir” – beyond the prototypical forms of usage (a) “self and person addressed”; (b) “self and person or persons spoken of” and (c) “self, person or persons addressed, and person or persons spoken of” (Boas 1911: 39). These “alternative”, non-prototypical uses of “wir”, which partly override the “residual semanticity” (Silverstein 1976: 47), are found to be related to the way in which they are embedded within the particular “social field” (Hanks 2005: 18). Thus, the indexical anchoring of “wir” proves to be rather flexible and responsive to interactional contingencies.

Honorifics in Northern Kurmanji with Reference to English

Honorifics are elements of language that can be represented by both lexical categories like nouns and functional categories like pronouns. They are respect, formality, and distance- related concepts and they have been of major concern to many sociolinguists and pragmatists. The current work is a pragmatic and sociolinguistic approach to honorifics in Northern Kurmanji/ Bahdinan area with reference to English. Data are collected from Waar TV. program ده‌نگێ گوندى The Voice of Village. Honorifics are identified and classified into categories; then they are explained. Data analysis shows that Northern Kurmanji does not achieve honorification morphologically, but rather lexically. Thus, it is a non- honorific language. Moreover, not only is the second-person plural pronoun used as an honorific, when addressing a single person, but also the first-person plural pronoun. Sometimes, the core function of honorifics is reversed to show disrespect in the context of irony.

We Shall Fight: Speaker-Exclusive We as a Grammatical Metaphor

The first person plural pronoun cannot be considered as an expression of pluralization of the first. Its semantic boundaries are defined in context, and this inherent vagueness an be pragmatically exploited for communicative purposes. Beyond the frequently investigated opposition between (addressee-) inclusive vs exclusive forms, this paper explores non-prototypical uses of the first person plural pronoun, focusing on the conflicts that arise when it is used in contexts that semantically exclude the speaker. Speaker-exclusive forms can occur in different situations, ranging from interpersonal exchanges to public discourse. The paper investigates their different semantic implications, highlighting their common traits as well as their crucial peculiarities. Both the review of the literature and the analysis of actual examples bring forth the different values and functions of various speaker-exclusive occurrences of the first person plural. A more systematic categorization of the forms can be obtained adopting a metaphorical interpretation, which on the one hand emphasises their common denominator (i.e. speaker-exclusiveness) and, on the other, sheds light on their varying communicative potential.

Negative Politeness Strategies in “Big Hero 6” Movie

This article describes the study of pragmatics that analyzes about the negative politeness strategies. The aim of this study is to find out the type of negative politeness strategies in movie “Big Hero 6”. The theory used is Levinson (2009). In this research, the researcher applied the qualitative descriptive method. The method of collecting data is observation. The researcher found 20 data that contain negative politeness strategies, the using of be indirect is 1 data, the using of question or hedging is 7 data, the using of minimize imposition 4 data, the using apologize 3 data, the using of give deference 1 data, and the using of plural pronoun is 4 data.

SELF-MENTIONS IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS RESEARCH ARTICLES WRITTEN BY INDONESIANS AND NON-INDONESIANS

This study explores self-mentions in Applied Linguistics research articles written by Indonesians and non-Indonesians. Twenty research articles consisting of 10 research articles written by Indonesians, and the other 10 by non-Indonesians were randomly selected from the leading and international Applied Linguistics journal published in 2017-2018. The use of first person pronouns in those articles was recorded and analyzed. The results indicate the more frequent use of self-mentions in the research articles written by Indonesians than by non-Indonesians. However, the use of first person plural pronoun is higher in the research articles written by non-Indonesians.

The Life of Guy

This book is about the name “Guy” and its slow, mostly unnoticed development over four centuries since it began on November 5, 1605, with the suddenly famous Guy Fawkes, who was arrested just in time just before he could light the fuse on 36 barrels of gunpowder to blow up the House of Lords. During those four centuries, “Guy” became “guy,” the name for an effigy of Guy Fawkes burned at bonfires every November 5 since. The effigy was called a “guy,” so that more than one effigy would be “guys,” Then, slowly, “guy” extended its signification into a name for a ragged, lower-class male, then any strangely dressed male, then a neutral everyday word for just any male, a “guy.” To top it off, the 20th century extended the plural “guys” or “you guys” to include all human beings, even women speaking to groups of women. None of these developments were made deliberately; the word just quietly slipped by, except for opposition from some Southerners and feminists who objected to it on the grounds that it wasn’t “y’all” and it wasn’t gender neutral. It has become all the more entrenched because now it’s the standard second-person plural pronoun for most of us who speak English.

Ladies and Gentlemen

In the 20th century, “guys” continued its expansion, becoming less particular as it grew more general. This chapter illustrates this development with many examples. At first there are a few outliers with an extended meaning, then more, until the extended is included without calling attention to it. “Guy” and “guys” first extended their meaning to encompass every male, infant to geezer. In the process they discarded their negative restrictions to low class or badly dressed, so “guy” was now, often enough, just a neutral designation for a male. And “guys” stretched even further, to include women. At first, as in Edna Ferber’s 1911 novel Dawn O’Hara, The Girl Who Laughed, it’s a mixed group, in this case one woman in an audience of five journalists being addressed by another one, a male. But if “guys” can include one woman, why not all? That’s the case in Rachel Crothers’s 1911 play, “He and She,” that has “guys” entirely female, in the phrase “wise guys.” By mid-century, in most of the United States, “guys” was the normal scarcely noted second-person plural pronoun. It has spread around the world also. Even speakers in Guy Fawkes’s home town of York, England, now use “you guys,” where it was unheard as recently as two decades ago.