Investigating Speech Acts of Insult in the Speeches of Members of Provincial Assembly of Sindh, Pakistan

This study investigates speech acts of insult in speeches made by members of Provincial Assembly of Sindh, Pakistan using Austin’s (1962) and Searle’s (1969) Speech Acts Theory. This theory implies that language is used to perform acts, such as commanding, requesting, complaining, admiring, apologizing, insulting, and many others. However, in this research, researchers explore why speech acts of insult are performed by the members of Provincial Assembly of Sindh belonging to different political parties. Qualitative analysis of purposively sampled data collected from eleven participants’ speeches, has been conducted to demonstrate how politicians enact speech acts of insult against each other. Findings reveal that the politicians performed speech acts of insult (expressive) when issues related to administration of Sindh and management of its resources (water distribution) were discussed. It is argued that members of the assembly are people’s representatives, and they should behave in a civilized manner and perform civic, polite speech acts.

Rethinking the frequency code: a meta-analytic review of the role of acoustic body size in communicative phenomena

The widely cited frequency code hypothesis attempts to explain a diverse range of communicative phenomena through the acoustic projection of body size. The set of phenomena includes size sound symbolism (using /i/ to signal smallness in words such as teeny ), intonational phonology (using rising contours to signal questions) and the indexing of social relations via vocal modulation, such as lowering one's voice pitch to signal dominance. Among other things, the frequency code is commonly interpreted to suggest that polite speech should be universally signalled via high pitch owing to the association of high pitch with small size and submissiveness. We present a cross-cultural meta-analysis of polite speech of 101 speakers from seven different languages. While we find evidence for cross-cultural variation, voice pitch is on average lower when speakers speak politely, contrary to what the frequency code predicts. We interpret our findings in the light of the fact that pitch has a multiplicity of possible communicative meanings. Cultural and contextual variation determines which specific meanings become manifest in a specific interactional context. We use the evidence from our meta-analysis to propose an updated view of the frequency code hypothesis that is based on the existence of many-to-many mappings between speech acoustics and communicative interpretations. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Voice modulation: from origin and mechanism to social impact (Part I)’.

The Use of Politeness Strategies and Respect Markers by Call Center Agents

Politeness is a basic verbal strategy that is commonly used by call center agents in handling customers, specifically when they encounter frustrated and irate customers, when they can hardly fix the problems of customers, or when they make mistakes in grammar and pronunciation. The aim of this study was to examine politeness strategies and respect markers employed by call center agents when transacting business with American customers. Data were gathered from interviews with 30 call center agents, and interview data were analyzed using words, phrases, clauses, and sentences as the unit of analysis. The responses of call center agents were coded/categorized and analyzed. Results of the study have revealed that call center agents utilized polite speech act formulae, polite requests, apologies, and respect markers in the course of their transaction with the customers. Furthermore, analysis has shown that the use or choice of politeness strategies and respect markers has an impact on the interactions of call center agents with their customers and affects the customers’ impression about the company and the quality of service.

Politeness Speech on Solidarity Scale-Based Manado Malay Speakers

This study aims to describe the form and meaning of politeness speech on solidarity scale-based Manado Malay speakers. This study conducted in Manado city and used qualitative as a method. Observation and interviews were used as a technique of the study. The observation was used to observe the speakers of Manado Malay in using polite speech in daily social activities, whereas an interview was used by the researcher to questioning the informant about the use of polite speech in social interaction. This technique is complemented with listening, proficient, and note-taking techniques. The researcher plays a role as a key instrument who collects and analyzes the data. The source of data is the native speakers of Manado Malay who do interact in various places. Three informants who master Manado Malay were chosen. Techniques of analyzing data consist of 1) data reduction, simplified data collection, 2) data presentation, simplified data presented, categorized based on form and meaning, 3) verification, the data that has been presented were checked once more to ensure the accuracy according to the expected data, 4) conclusions, answering the predetermined problem formulations. The results showed that the social dimension, especially the solidarity scale, is a consideration for Manado Malay speakers in realizing polite speech, as well as when to use informal variants and when to use formal ones. The relationship among speakers has made them create the appropriate language choices, but language ethics that embody politeness remain a consideration. In various social interactions, occupations, religious meetings, associations, and family interactions, it turns out that Manado Malay people realize the politeness of speaking by changing command sentences into declarative sentences and asking along with the use of a flat intonation when speaking. The consideration of solidarity is the reason they speak politely, in addition to the status and formality scale.

Violence and Politeness in Political Context

Apart from the introduction and conclusion the research consists of two parts. The first part is the theoretical aspects of the research, which consists of two sections. The first section identifies the two concepts of violence and politeness/tenderness in terms of language with their semantic features and levels. The second section is dedicated to the speech act theory with identifying violent and polite acts within the speech act theory. the rest of the section deals with discourse, political discourse and election discourse. The second part represents the practical side of the research, which identifies violent and polite speech acts in the discourse of the elected lists including the analysis of the Kurdistani and Goran ( the Change Movement) lists. The research ends with the conclusion, list of references and the abstract in both Arabic and English languages.

The Role of Parental Input in the Early Acquisition of Japanese Politeness Distinctions

Japanese polite language (teineigo) varies with the speaker-addressee relationship as well as social norms. Descriptive studies have found that young Japanese children use polite-speech early in development. This claim was experimentally tested in 3- to 6-year-old Japanese children and correct use of polite verb forms was found even in the youngest children. The early acquisition of these verb forms is surprising, because there is a Japanese social norm that parental speech to children is mostly not polite, so it is not clear how children acquire the knowledge of how to use polite forms. To examine this, a large scale corpus analysis of polite language was performed using a probabilistic measure of the intended addressee. We confirmed that parental speech is mostly not polite, but parents also produced a substantial amount of polite language that varied appropriately with addressees and this can help to explain the early use of polite speech in Japanese children under experimental conditions.

Civility as Politeness During COVID-19

This chapter examines new challenges to the politeness dimension of civility presented by COVID-19. First, the pandemic has made it more difficult for people to identify norms of politeness and behave appropriately in circumstances that were previously less contested and problematic. Furthermore, signalling respect and consideration towards others via polite speech or behaviour is more likely to go awry during COVID-19. Additionally, the lack of clarity surrounding norms of politeness may prevent polite acts from helping to mitigate conflict and facilitate cooperative social exchange. Finally, citizens and politicians can exploit disruptions around politeness norms to engage in behaviour that under normal circumstances would be considered impolite. The chapter also identifies potential solutions that governments, businesses, and citizens can adopt to respond to these challenges.

‘Me inda nampak’ – Pronoun Use in Malay-English Codemixed Social Media Texts

This paper investigates the use of English the first-person singular object pronoun ‘me’ as a subject in conversation on WhatsApp and Telegram between university students in their twenties. It was found that the feature occurs more when interlocutors are code switching, especially in paired chats when ‘me’ often replaces the Malay pronoun aku or saya. This paper explores reasons for this, and how this feature has come to be used in synchronous electronically mediated conversations between young Bruneians. The findings show that using ‘me’ serves as a polite speech marker which is perceived as a softer expression than Malay aku in conversations, depending on the interlocutors.